Although the Geneva Convention of August 22, 1864, for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field has today only symbolic significance, its spirit lives still in the Conventions that were subsequently elaborated. It played, indeed, a capital role in the development of international humanitarian law and, in view of that fact, it may be appropriate to indicate in what way it exerted an influence that became increasingly stronger and that made itself quickly felt on the laws of various countries.

From September 1973 to March 1974, more than 250,000 persons have been moved from one side of the Asian sub-continent to the other in a vast operation involving the extensive co-operation of the ICRC. It was possible for this repatriation operation to be carried out only through the positive stand adopted by the three countries concerned and the co-operation shown by Switzerland, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the ICRC. Since the end of the Second World War, this is the most extensive repatriation operation undertaken by the ICRC, and its sheer size compels us to give in the pages that follow a summarized account of what has been accomplished. The relief efforts, though of considerable magnitude, undertaken by the ICRC since 1971 in support of prisoners, internees and civilians in the Asian sub-continent, will not be touched upon here, as they have been mentioned on several occasions in past issues of the International Review.

It was with deep regret that the International Committee learned of the death of Mr. Carl J. Burckhardt on 3 March 1974. When he was appointed a member of the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1933, Carl Burckhardt tirelessly worked with Max Huber, another eminent member and a former President of the ICRC. From November 1939, he devoted himself fully to ICRC activities and gave all his time and energy during the whole of the Second World War to the manifold tasks that had to be carried out.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has received from the Federal Political Department in Berne a communication informing it that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Sultanate of Oman, in its letter of 23 January 1974, has notified its accession to the four Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949.

Before the existence of the Red Cross and the Geneva Conventions, any soldier fallen into enemy hands was entirely at his captor's mercy. Now the Third 1949 Geneva Convention relative to the treatment of prisoners of war—recognized by 133 States—clearly lays down how he must be treated during captivity.