The Secretary-General of the Albanian Red Cross reports on action taken by her National Society in response to the massive flow of refugees into Albania from neighbouring Kosovo in the spring of 1999. Pandora Ketri shows how a National Society, only a few years after it started to gain strength, met an enormous challenge and coped with huge difficulties. Though the Albanian Red Cross could count on support from other National Societies, the International Federation and the ICRC, the members of this young Society had to bear the brunt of the work. The experience gained through its activities for refugees from Kosovo helped the Albanian Red Cross consolidate its position as a member of the Movement and as a full-fledged relief society.

Since its foundation in 1866 the Swiss Red Cross has been actively involved in caring for refugees who fled their countries of origin to neutral Switzerland. During the various wars in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and above all the Second World War, the Swiss Red Cross set up shelters for thousands of refugees, with particular emphasis on care for children. With the fall of the Iron Curtain in the heart of Europe and especially the growing influx of migrants from the south, the Swiss Red Cross has had to find different ways of helping with refugee crises. The article discusses the various steps in this ongoing process of adapting its policy to new circumstances.

The Women and War Project unit has been conducting a study of the impact of armed conflict on women and the normative and operational responses to their needs by the ICRC in carrying out its activities. This study will be published in 2001 and forms the basis for the implementation of a specific pledge on women and war made by the ICRC at the 27th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (Geneva, 1999) for four years from the year 2000. In that pledge, the ICRC undertook to increase its promotion both of the protection accorded to women by international humanitarian law and of the prohibition of sexual violence. It will also endeavour to ensure that all its protection, health and assistance activities appropriately meet the needs of women war victims in order to alleviate their plight.

We are all aware that we are passing through a phase characterized by rapid changes involving concepts that transcend cultures and utilize mechanisms that some societies may be unable to understand. Since the end of the Cold War, which had troubled international relations for more than fifty years, the parameters of contemporary international relations have evolved within the framework of the concept of globalization.

I do not think that anyone questions the political, economic, social or cultural impact of globalization. The present differences of opinion concern assessment of the extent of the adverse consequences of this impact on human society, and especially on communities in the Third World, many of which are still living in backward conditions.

• International humanitarian law cannot serve as a basis for armed intervention in response to grave violations of its provisions; the use of force is governed by the United Nations Charter.

• It is not for the ICRC to pronounce on the legality or legitimacy of such intervention.

• International humanitarian law applies when intervention forces are engaged in hostilities with one or more of the parties to the conflict.

• The ICRC seeks to promote the term “armed intervention in response to grave violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law”.