The International Conference for the Protection of War Victims, held in Geneva from 31 August to 1 September 1993, urged all States to make every effort to

“ensure that war crimes are duly prosecuted and do not go unpunished, and accordingly implement the provisions on the punishment of grave breaches of international humanitarian law and encourage the timely establishment of appropriate international legal machinery …”.

“To unite Red Cross Societies throughout the world in a concerted effort to prevent, mitigate and alleviate the suffering caused by disease and major disasters”. This was the primary aim of the League of Red Cross Societies (now the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies) whose seventy-fifth anniversary we have just celebrated. The League, it will be recalled, was founded in response to the wishes of National Red Cross Society leaders and eminent representatives of the medical world — inspired by President Woodrow Wilson's ideals — to submit to Societies programmes of action in the general interest of humanity and coordinate their efforts in dealing with the scourges of that time.

The International Review of the Red Cross is 125 years old — an age which might well be called venerable, unless the term “honourable” is preferred, but in any case a surprising age for a publication.

Periodical publications which have lasted for so long are rare indeed, and the number of such international and multilingual reviews can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Few journals have the opportunity, as the Review has today, of celebrating their 125th anniversaries. A more suitable occasion could hardly be found to highlight the publication's important contribution to the study of a broad range of subjects, including the Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, international humanitarian law, the activities of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the history of humanitarian ideas and of those who have championed them, world peace and international ethical standards. In fact, an outstanding feature of the Review over the past fifty years has been the very scope and diversity of the subjects it addresses. Two of these, among others, have played a significant role in the development of the Movement.

This year, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has celebrated an important anniversary. Seventy-five years ago, five men from five different Societies — American, British, French, Italian and Japanese — sat together to forge a union of Societies around the world, a global consortium united in its quest to serve humanity. Decades later, with a membership of 162 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, a total of 124 million individual members and 250,000 employees, the Federation has marked 75 years of response to the suffering of humankind. Now some changes are in order to help us meet our humanitarian goals. Yet our mission, governed by the fundamental principle of humanity, the cornerstone of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, remains constant.

In its “Final Declaration” adopted on 1 September 1993, the International Conference for the Protection of War Victims (Geneva, 30 August to 1 September 1993) conferred upon an intergovernmental group of experts to be convened by the Swiss Government the mandate to study “practical means of promoting full respect for and compliance with [international humanitarian] law, and to prepare a report for submission to the States and to the next session of the International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent”.

The fundamental instruments of international humanitarian law are well known. They are principally the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977, as well as an extensive framework of customary law. These instruments deal with issues of vital importance in times of armed conflict including protection of the wounded, sick and shipwrecked, prisoners of war and civilian internees, as well as the protection of the civilian population as a whole.

On the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of St. Petersburg, the International Review of the Red Cross devoted to this important first document of the law of war an article examining the relation between the notion of the “legitimate object” of war as defined in the Declaration and the means of warfare used, whose lawfulness was declared to be limited by their conformance to that legitimate object and by their necessity. Since 1868 the law of international armed conflicts has been supplemented by Protocol I additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which enlarged on the central point of the Preamble to the Declaration of 1868 — i.e. the concept of “maux superflus” (“superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering”); although it was not formulated as such until 1899 in Article 23 e) of the Regulations respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, it may, as we shall demonstrate, be traced back to the Declaration's Preamble. Protocol I broadened the concept's scope of application to include methods of warfare, but it also and above all introduced a new rule of considerable import by narrowing the definition of military objectives that may lawfully be attacked.

The International Conference for the Protection of War Victims, held from 30 August to 1 September 1993 in Geneva, the “cradle” of humanitarian law, was an important event in international life. It gave an opportunity to diplomats of practically every nation not only to consider general issues of international humanitarian law, but also to discuss what to do in order to react adequately to the challenges of today, above all the escalation of armed conflicts and violations of international humanitarian law.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has first-hand experience of the real consequences of the many armed conflicts now taking place and of the actual use and effects of weapons. It therefore has a particular interest in ensuring that the law takes into account the realities of the use of weapons in order to effectively reduce the amount of suffering caused in armed conflicts.

What can be done to counter the innumerable attacks on human dignity? This vexing question is today a global issue. Over the past 75 years — ever since the founding of the League of Nations and the International Labour Organisation — it has given rise to increasing concern. Indeed, the history of our century, with its seemingly endless succession of wars and economic crises, has furnished constant reminders of its urgency. The problem is currently taking on a new dimension in many States and international organizations, and it is in this context that “improving the situation of the most vulnerable”, the strategic aim of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, should be situated.

To mark his seventieth birthday, Jean Pictet, Honorary Vice-President of the ICRC, gave a lecture at the University of Geneva on 16 November 1984 entitled “The formation of international humanitarian law”.

A remarkable summary of the development of humanitarian law in the twentieth century, it concludes with remarks which go well beyond the original subject. They express his thoughts about the difficult relationships between humanitarian imperatives and military and political necessities and between idealism and pragmatism; reference is also made to everyone's responsibility to disseminate and apply a law which stems not only from humanity but also from common sense.

This document is based on the Final Declaration of the International Conference for the Protection of War Victims, the report prepared by the ICRC for that Conference and the note sent to States at the beginning of March 1994 by the Swiss Government, concerning the meeting of the group of experts.

The present paper does not take up all the points referred to in the Swiss Government's note, but defines more precisely, for certain of them, issues that the experts might look into more closely.

In ratifying the 1977 Protocols additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, Sweden pledged to inform and instruct the authorities responsible for the country's policy of “total defence” and their personnel, as well as the civilian population, on the rules of international law.

The present study deals with one specific aspect of the whole issue of finding ways and means of improving respect for international humanitarian law, namely, implementation of the obligation, as contained in Article 1 common to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and to their Additional Protocol I of 1977, to ensure respect for this law. It is based upon the premise that the interpretation of common Article 1, whereby the obligation to ensure respect for international humanitarian law implies that every High Contracting Party ought to take action with regard to any other High Contracting Party which does not respect this law, is uncontested. The study therefore does not discuss this issue, but rather identifies and briefly comments upon the various types of measures available to States in order to fulfil their obligation to ensure respect. The examples given for the various measures are merely illustrative and ought by no means to be considered as a judgement by the author regarding their justification in the light of the circumstances under which they were adopted.

The recent explicit focus on “vulnerable groups” by international assistance agencies — particularly those that respond to emergency situations around the world — reflects two important concerns. First, aid providers want to be able to identify potential victims of disasters in order to anticipate and mitigate such events, and second, they use the identification of vulnerable groups as a way of targeting assistance, which is always restricted by limited resources, towards those groups who most need it. However, vulnerability should be understood as a far more powerful concept in the design and implementation of aid operations than simply as a criterion for targeting aid. In fact, problems arise when the notion of vulnerability is used only or primarily to identify groups who should receive assistance.