The decision of the International Review of the Red Cross to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is both understandable and commendable, given the Review's mission to promote and strive for observance of international humanitarian law during armed conflicts and the increasing convergence of that law with human rights law — as evidenced by the gradual substitution of the term “international humanitarian law” for the term “the law of war”.

If recent estimates are to be believed, more than two million people may have died in the famine that engulfed North Korea in 1997 and 1998. In 1997, the United Nations estimated that 4.7 million North Koreans were in danger of starvation. In response, the international community pledged food aid. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies presented an expanded appeal for aid in June 1997. In January 1998, the World Food Programme (WFP) launched its biggest appeal, setting a target of 380 million US dollars in food aid, nearly double the amount requested for 1997. Yet, the international community has met resistance in attempting to assist North Koreans suffering from malnutrition and facing starvation.

In Somalia, a group of young actors, musicians and scriptwriters are working on a play which is to be produced, filmed and distributed in the form of a video throughout the country. One scene shows a young militiaman boasting of how he has terrorized the population and the reaction of the woman he loves. She evokes the suffering caused by his conduct and refuses to marry a man who has disregarded the code of honour of his clan. This creative work contains a message for young militiamen about the effect of unbridled violence on both its victims and its perpetrators.

The ICRC has always maintained contacts, often close ones, with the National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. According to Article 3 of the Statutes of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, “the National Societies form the basic units and constitute a vital force of the Movement”. In this sense, the ICRC regards them as special partners in the conduct of its humanitarian activities, as it recently re-emphasized in its strategic study on the organization's future, which it shared with all the National Societies in a letter dated 16 December 1997: “As a member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement — of which it is the founder — the ICRC works to ensure respect for the Fundamental Principles and cooperates primarily with the National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and their Federation” (emphasis added).

Violations of international humanitarian law are not a new phenomenon. Nor is the establishment of an international criminal court to counter such violations a new idea. The first project creating a link between violations of a humanitarian treaty — that is, the Geneva Convention of 1864 for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field — and penal sanction by a permanent international judicial body was drawn up by Gustave Moynier, one of the founders of the ICRC Like so many other projects, it did not materialize, however.

The 25th International Conference of the Red Cross stressed the importance of tracing, asking “all the National Societies to carry out to the best of their capacity the role which they are called upon to play as components of the international network for tracing and reuniting families”.

A number of authors, notably Hardcastle and Chua writing in this issue of the Review, have recently argued the case for either the existence of an international legal right to humanitarian assistance or the need to speedily establish such a right.

Fifty years ago … on 10 December 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations solemnly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This event was a turning point in the development of international law. The individual human being, whose rights had been established over the long evolution of constitutional history, was now recognized as a central point of reference within the international legal system.

The Cuban Red Cross, which was founded on 10 March 1909, was recognized by Presidential Decree No. 401 of the same year as an “aid society auxiliary to the public authorities”. For more than half a century its activities remained rather modest, focusing on health care for the most needy groups in Cuban society, for example by setting up dispensaries and offering medical and dental services at no charge or for a nominal fee.

Two prominent events that occurred midway through this century had a great impact on international criminal law. The first milestone in this area was the trials of the major war criminals held in Nuremberg and Tokyo in the wake of the Second World War. They highlighted the principle of individual criminal responsibility for certain serious violations of the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict; the terms “crimes against the peace”, “war crimes”, and “crimes against humanity” found formal recognition. The second event, following closely on the first, was the adoption of the four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 for the protection of war victims. These instruments established a specific framework for the prevention and punishment of the most serious violations of the provisions they contain; the technical term “grave breach” was coined.

Today there can no longer be any doubt: international humanitarian law and international human rights law are near relations. This oft-repeated observation must now be accepted by all. Many believe that the close relationship between these two areas existed and was perceived “from the outset”. That is not at all the case. Formerly assigned to separate legal categories, it was only under the persistent scrutiny of modern analysts that they revealed the common attributes which would seem to promise many fruitful exchanges in the future. Let us try to clarify the situation.

Fifty years after the United Nations proclaimed its ambitious Universal Declaration of Human Rights, skeptics will have no trouble demonstrating that the international community's commitment to the document is shallow at best. The pretense was laid bare by the UN's inadequacy to stop genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda, compounded by the institution's failure to conduct a thoroughgoing self-examination to determine the lessons of the debacle in Bosnia.

Modern conflict often takes place in a communication vacuum, and it is time that something were done to fill it.

Those engaged in war today appear to have ever less desire to make their voices heard, in most cases for good reason. In this post-Cold War era, the belligerents do not care as much as they once did about what the rest of the world thinks. They no longer live in fear of annoying or embarrassing their sponsors; indeed in most cases they no longer have sponsors at all, nor do they need them. It is no longer their dream to make speeches at the United Nations in New York, as it was for so many national liberation movements a few decades ago. Many simply care nothing about their international image, or about the outside world.

The Nigerian Red Cross Society has its roots in the year 1917, when the country was still under British rule. In that year the British Red Cross for the first time organized a fund-raising event in Lagos. There followed the formation of what was then known as the Nigeria Central Branch of the British Red Cross Society, with headquarters in Lagos. The branch had divisions in the then three regions of the country — Eastern, Northern and Western — with headquarters respectively in Enugu, Kaduna and Ibadan. Once Nigeria achieved independence, on 1 October 1960, the Nigerian Red Cross Society was born through an act of parliament (“The Nigerian Red Cross Society Act of 1960”). Today, the Society has a branch in each of the country's 36 states as well as in Abuja, in the Federal Capital Territory.

The development in the last 50 years of the principles that comprise human rights law has had a major impact on international humanitarian law and indeed on international law generally. In more recent years, the movement for recognition of the equal rights of women has been exerting its own influence on human rights law and to some effect. In 1979, for example, the international community adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), to which 155 States are now party. Consideration is currently being given to the adoption of an Optional Protocol that will allow for individual and group complaints to be brought before the CEDAW Committee. Governmental and non-governmental organizations have increasingly focused on women's human rights. As a result, a wide range of studies, reports and recommendations on various aspects of the issue is available. The topic of women is thus firmly established on the international human rights agenda.

On 15 June 1998, a diplomatic conference in Rome will open a five-week session to remedy one of the long-standing gaps in the implementation system for international humanitarian law by adopting a treaty to establish a permanent international criminal court. Although the current effort within the United Nations to set up a permanent court began half a century ago with a proposal in 1947 by Henri Donnedieu de Vabres, the French judge on the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, it is not widely known that the first serious such proposal appears to have been made more than a century and a quarter ago by Gustave Moynier, one of the founders, and longtime President, of the International Committee of the Red Cross. He wrestled with many of the same problems which will face the drafters of the statute at the 1998 diplomatic conference and the strengths and weaknesses of his proposal still have relevance today. This short essay describes that proposal and its origins, reviews the reaction to it of his contemporaries and its impact on subsequent history and concludes with an assessment of the merits of Moynier's plan.