The subject I shall deal with is one that traditionally comes up for discussion, to the point of growing stale. Innumerable resolutions and recommendations on “Red Cross and Peace” have been voted by delegates to International Red Cross Conferences. One might even say that this type of recommendation, which of course is addressed to all responsible governments, has become a feature of every Red Cross gathering.

The paper quoted below was submitted, under agenda item 21, to the League Board of Governors at its Mexico meeting in October 1971. We take pleasure in bringing it to the knowledge of our readers, in view of the importance and topical aspect of nature conservancy to which the Red Cross is known to be giving increasing attention in various countries. Several National Societies are drawing up plans for the protection and improvement of the environment. Others have already taken action and some co-operate with other organizations concerned about the subject and which often conduct their own publicity campaigns.

Further on, we give extracts from another communication which was presented by Professor Maurice Marois to the same meeting of the Board of Governors. It deals with the same problem as viewed by the Institut de la Vie from the angle of its own work for the protection of nature.

The International Committee of the Red Cross had the honour of providing you, by Circular 483 of September 1971, with a report on the work of the Conference of Government Experts on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts which was held in Geneva from 24 May to 12 June 1971. The same Circular informed you of the second session of that Conference which would be open to all States expressly party to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and that, in order to closely associate National Societies with this work, the International Committee had decided to invite representatives of those societies to attend as observers.

Since March 1971, the International Committee of the Red Cross had been watching the situation on the Indian sub-continent and had given particular attention to the development of its contacts with the Governments and Red Cross Societies of India and Pakistan with a view to carrying out its humanitarian mission for the benefit of the victims of events.

Doctor-delegate visits camps.—Early in 1972, the ICRC doctor-delegate in the Khmer Republic made a general round of visits to refugee camps at Phnom-Penh, together with representatives of the Khmer Health Sub-Committee. Some 32 camps situated in the Khmer capital were thus visited and the doctor-delegate enquired into the organization of the medical treatment of the refugees. Six camps are visited daily by the municipal health mobile unit, while the other camps, which are in charge of a nurse, are visited every 2 or 3 days.

In its last issue, the International Review stated that 130 States were parties to the Geneva Conventions of 1949. This number has now risen to 131. The ICRC has recently been informed by the Federal Political Department in Berne that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Burundi has notified the Swiss Federal Council, in a letter which reached the latter on 27 December 1971, that Burundi considers itself a party to the four Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, under the earlier ratification by Belgium.

The ICRC has on various occasions drawn the attention of National Red Cross Societies to the importance of an ever wider dissemination of the Geneva Conventions. In March 1971, it sent them a letter relating to the teaching of international humanitarian law in universities. Recently it reverted to the subject in a circular which we publish below, followed by the outline of a course on international humanitarian law which Mr. Jean Pictet, Vice-President of the ICRC, is giving at the University of Geneva, and which he has authorized us to reproduce.