The International Committee of the Red Cross is aware that international law gives inadequate protection to aircraft used for medical evacuation. It considers that the subject is one which calls for further study and therefore takes pleasure in reproducing in the following pages a translation of important extracts of a recent article on legal protection for aircraft used as air-ambulances in time of war. This article is of particular interest, coming from Dr. Evrard who, being a flyer, can look at the problem from a practical as well as a legal point of view.

Definitions.— Social welfare is a relatively recent field of activity and knowledge. The notions themselves are therefore constantly evolving. In addition to a certain number of social workers and social workers' associations, the United Nations as well as the International Conference of Social Work have attempted to define them. There is an increasing tendency in various countries to differentiate between social welfare and social work.

For some years it has been customary to call “humanitarian law” that considerable portion of international law which owes its inspiration to a feeling for humanity and which is centred on the protection of the individual. This expression of humanitarian law appears to combine two ideas of a different character, the one legal and the other moral. Now, the provisions which are the subject under study are, as will be seen later, precisely a transposition in international law of considerations of a moral order, and more especially humanitarian. This then would seem to be a satisfactory designation.

The International Review has on a number of occasions published articles and news items on Red Cross action in favour of refugees, stateless and displaced persons. In July 1965 it brought to our readers a large part of an important study on legal assistance to refugees and the activities of the International Centre for Co-ordination of Legal Assistance, in Geneva.

On May 8, when the world of the Red Cross, the Red Crescent and Red Lion and Sun each year commemorates Henry Dunanfs memory, the movement has chosen its universality as a rallying standard for all National Societies in 1966.

The word “neuter” comes from the Latin ne-uter, which means, neither the one, nor the other. Neutrality is an essentially neutral notion. It qualifies above all the abstention of someone who remains outside a conflict who does not openly express an opinion of either side.

In international law, neutrality is the opposite of belligerency. It is the position adopted, in relation to two Powers at war, by a State not taking part in the struggle. The status of neutrality regulated by juridical rules and in particular by the Hague Conventions involves rights and duties. In short, it implies refraining from taking part officially, either directly or indirectly, in hostilities. In the first place, therefore, it is a concept of an essentially military character. However, as a result of a recent evolution in events and thought, some people tend to think that neutrality should also have effect in the economic sphere, in view of its importance today in the war potential of countries.

On the 10th December 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which had been drawn up by a series of meetings of the Commission of Human Rights and the Commission on the Condition of Women as well as major discussions which took place during the first seven sessions of the Economic and Social Council. The General Assembly presented this Declaration “as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education … and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance …”

Our November 1965 issue outlined the main aspects of the Vienna conference from October 2–9, 1965, and it also gave the texts of the resolutions adopted.

The importance of the proceedings and the team spirit which prevailed at the meetings of the three commissions are well known. The constructive work at their sessions never failed to ensure a full attendance by all delegates, and it was accomplished thanks, inter alia, to the valuable contacts established both during sessions and at the several receptions so generously offered by the host to the conference. Upon their return to their own countries, the National Society and government delegates will be able to examine the results achieved and draw conclusions from the relevant texts, particularly from those on the problem of dissemination of the rules of humanitarian law. It is also in this field that the ICRC has an enormous task before it, one which it hopes to complete in time for the next International Conference to be held in Istanbul in 1969. The International Review will revert to this subject in subsequent numbers, with studies on the wide issues involved in Vienna.

One of the most important questions to be dealt with by the XXth International Conference of the Red Cross was the item on its agenda entitled “The Red Cross as a Factor for World Peace”. This no doubt traditional subject which has for a long time engaged the attention of International Conferences, is now more topical than ever in view of present-day circumstances.

Alongside the rules which constitute the enacting clauses of the international Conventions and which, in precise terms, set forth the contractual obligations of States, there exist principles from which these rules derive. “Certain ideas formulated with deliberate imprecision occupy a privileged position in treaties which describe them as being creative elements of law”.

It will be recalled that in August and September 1963 on the occasion of the Red Cross Centenary, conferences and seminars took place in Switzerland. The International Review analyzed the importance and significance of their results. Subsequently, it drew attention to the publications issued by the Centenary Commission of the Red Cross in Switzerland, as a result of these meetings, namely, the World Conference of Educators, the International Nursing Study Centre, and the International Red Cross Meeting of First Aiders.

The same Commission has now published a further book devoted to the work of the “Seminar on the Activity of the Red Cross on Behalf of the Victims of Armed Conflicts”. We believe our readers will be interested in this publication of which we give some extracts below. Let us first recall the significance of this seminar.

Application of the Geneva Conventions. — With the end of the Indo-Pakistan conflict, one can observe with satisfaction that the two parties, in accordance with their undertaking, applied the Geneva Conventions and accepted the ICRC's intervention. Humanitarian provisions were thus generally effective on either side of the lines.

In its 1949 version, the First Geneva Convention for the amelioration of the condition of the wounded in armies in the field, distinguishes for the first time in its article 44 between the two different uses of the red cross emblem. On the one hand is the protective sign, which is the visible manifestation of the protection conferred by the Convention on certain persons and objects, essentially those which belong to the Army Medical Service, and, on the other hand, there is the purely indicatory sign, which indicates that a person or an object is connected with the National Society, but without the protection of the Convention. Article 44 also defines in a general manner the legitimate uses of the emblem in its two meanings.

In December 1965 there took place in Liège a “Study period on international medical law” which consisted of a discussion by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, of the International Committee of Military Medicine and Pharmacy and of the World Medical Association: the World Health Organization and the League of Red Cross Societies were represented by observers. This was followed by a general meeting of the Medico–legal Commission of the International Law Association and of the International Medical Law Study Centre of Liège.

Japan is a country where nature is by no means benign and where men are often sorely tried by the violence of the elements; in addition, the configuration and population distribution add further to the difficulties.

In conformity with the resolutions of 1863 and the Swiss policy of armed neutrality, our National Red Cross Society has from its very beginning considered support of the army medical service to be one of its primary tasks. First to assume this task was the Société de secours aux militaires et leurs familles, which was founded on July 17, 1866. Apart from training volunteer first-aid workers to tend the wounded and the sick, the Society also extended its help to the families of soldiers mobilized in war-time. It carried out its main social work during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71 and also rendered assistance to French troops interned in Switzerland. The Swiss Central Red Cross Society, which was founded on April 25, 1882, and replaced the Société de Secours, also planned to “promote the care of the sick in time of peace and of war”, at the same time considering it its duty to render “first-aid in the event of accident”.

Just as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims the fundamental importance of the rights of all men, so the European Convention on Human Rights seeks to secure to everyone within the jurisdiction of the High Contracting Parties the rights and freedoms it contains. This objective of securing the general application of the protection of the Convention is followed in the Protocols to the Convention which add further rights to those already incorporated in it.