This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Geneva Protocol of June 17, 1925 for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare. This Protocol—which has been referred to in several issues of International Review—is generally considered to be the expression of the revulsion with which public opinion has at all times reacted towards poison. This general view has led a large number of governments and publicists to draw the conclusion that the norms contained in the 1925 Geneva Protocol represent a codification of customary law.

The ICRC continued its work in Angola, protecting and helping the civilian and military victims of the conflict.

In the second half of September, the thirty ICRC doctors and delegates visited more than a thousand followers of all parties to the conflict who were either prisoners of the three liberation movements (MPLA, UNITA, FNLA) or under the protection of the Portuguese armed forces. The delegates spoke without witnesses to prisoners of their choice, delivered family messages and provided relief supplies.

Mr. Herbert Lüthy was elected to membership of the Assembly of the ICRC at its meeting of 25 September 1975.

Mr. Lüthy, who was born in Basle in 1918, completed his primary and secondary education in German Switzerland. He pursued his higher studies at the Universities of Paris, Geneva and Zurich, specializing in history, Romance languages and French literature. In 1942, he took a doctorate in philosophy at Zurich University.