Henry Dunant very clearly understood the value of good communications or he never would have written A Memory of Solferino—a book that moved the conscience of nations to action. In the United States, Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, was also a communicator. Unlike many of her time, she maintained good rapport with the press because she recognized the value of timeliness, human interest and repetition. What she conveyed to the public was an image of consistency and devotion to humanitarian ideals.

Every war brings its share of missing persons, whether military or civilian. And every individual reported missing is then sought by a family anxiously awaiting news of their loved one. These families cannot be left in such a state of anguish. For the truth, however painful it may be, is preferable to the torture of uncertainty and false hope. In Bosnia and Herzegovina civilians were especially affected by a conflict in which belligerents pursued a policy of ethnic cleansing by expelling minority groups from certain regions. Thousands of people who disappeared in combat or were thrown into prison, summarily executed or massacred, are still being sought by their families.

Academics rarely raise the need to consider persons with disabilities when preventing, investigating and prosecuting international humanitarian law (IHL) violations. Worse still, no actual attempts have been made to include a disability perspective into practical guidance and monitoring mechanisms. This article addresses that void by laying out how existing yet unutilized IHL obligations can be leveraged to repress and suppress disability-based IHL violations. In doing so, the article will detail how fact-finding approaches, criminal investigative processes and reporting methods for IHL violations can be inclusive of persons with disabilities and thus more appropriately address the endemic under-representation of a disability perspective in the planning and execution of military operations during armed conflict and the specific crimes they thereby suffer. Additionally, this article will articulate concrete changes that should be made to international criminal law procedures for prosecuting war crimes to provide recognition and accountability for disability-based IHL violations, as has been done for violations against women and children. Finally, this article will diagnose the state of the law to address any legal challenges or hurdles that may hamper the inclusion of a disability perspective in fulfilling the IHL obligation to reduce and address violations of humanitarian law.

It is an honour and a privilege for me to address this Conference devoted to a topic of great importance to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). As a humanitarian organization, whose mandate it is to provide protection and assistance for victims of armed conflicts and which is operational worldwide, the ICRC has been directly concerned with many peace-keeping missions undertaken by the United Nations.

Anything concerning Henry Dunant is of interest to members of the Red Cross. We are therefore particularly grateful to Mr. Paul-Emile Schazmann, for many years conservator of manuscripts at the Swiss National Library, for having made available, for the centenary issue of our Review, unpublished writings by Dunant on facts which have so far received no attention. (Ed.)

From the time that man discovered fire and devised ways to use it as a tool for survival and advancement, it also has been employed as a weapon for destruction. Sun Tsu's The Art of War (500 B.C.) refers to incendiary arrows, while Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War describes a flame weapon used by the Spartans in 42 B.C. Edward Gibbon, in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ascribes Roman success at Constantinople (1453 A.D.) to “Greek fire,” ignited naptha mixed with pitch and resin and spread upon the surface of the water. Great Britain employed Greek fire almost five centuries later as a defence along its coastlines in anticipation of an invasion in 1940.

In the European wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, armies employed compulsory taxation of the countryside in lieu of looting to finance their activities. A defaulting town would have some of its buildings burned, leading to the tax being referred to as Brandschatzung, “burning money.” This practice became widespread during the Thirty Years war.

At the end of March 1978, the ICRC in a private ceremony took leave of Mr. Claude Pilloud who had reached the age limit and was leaving the service of the ICRC after a fruitful career lasting nearly forty years. On behalf of the ICRC, its President, Mr. A. Hay, thanked Mr. Pilloud for the eminent services he had rendered to the whole of the Red Cross movement.