Humanitarian issues have hardly ever before been given so much publicity by debates over what some people have described as the “droit” or “devoir d'ingérence”, which is then linked with the notion of the right to assistance. At the various levels at which the problem is perceived, the public at large, the media and legal experts have become involved in lively and even heated debates.

While States ever more ardently defend their sovereignty, which does little to improve international cooperation, and as the application of humanitarian law in armed conflicts declines, men of good will throughout the world are doing their utmost to reverse these trends. The century now drawing to a close has witnessed a plethora of private initiatives taken in an effort to temper reasons of State by more humane considerations. Many non-governmental organizations, some symbolically styling themselves “without borders”, have taken over where governments can no longer cope, organizing relief, combating drought, preserving the environment or improving sanitary conditions. These voluntary organizations whose vocation is to serve mankind are without question pursuing humanitarian aims as defined in the first Red Cross principle, which is “to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found”, and whose “purpose is to protect life and health and to ensure respect for the human being”. Emergency medical assistance organizations, stating that they wish to remain independent of the powers that be, demanding freedom of action to help all victims and encouraged by the example set by Henry Dunant and the ICRC, do not hesitate to claim that their activities fall within the terms of an as yet unwritten body of law entitling them to bring assistance to needy civilian communities, even against the will of the government. Indeed, they believe that receiving proper care is one of the basic human rights of the individual, wheresoever and whosoever he may be. Such basic rights know no national boundary. While awaiting recognition of their activities, the duty to intervene is created by moral considerations.

Bearing in mind the plethora of rules applicable in time of war, jurists define international law rather elaborately as follows:

“International humanitarian law applicable in armed conflict means international rules, established by treaties or custom, which are specifically intended to solve humanitarian problems directly arising from international or non-international armed conflicts and which, for humanitarian reasons, limit the right of Parties to a conflict to use the methods and means of warfare of their choice or protect persons and property that are, or may be, affected by conflict”.

As the Swiss people ponder over their European destiny and the future of Switzerland's status of permanent neutrality, some commentators have raised the question whether the ICRC will be able to maintain complete independence — whichever way Switzerland turns — in conducting its humanitarian operations based on the fundamental principles of the Red Cross.

Stormy petrels are small, dark-hued seagoing birds. In violent weather they fly between the waves for protection. According to the lore of the sea, they are heralds of danger.

For centuries, neutral mariners navigating the same waters have tried to avoid the violence that engulfed seafaring warriors. In our mobile world, their experience is a cautionary tale and represents a legal precedent for all international travellers. In recent times airline passengers, expatriate workers and many others have been endangered by conflicts not their own. When that happens, their lives depend on the same principles that have been forged to protect neutrals at sea. Neutral mariners have been the stormy petrels of international law.

On 19 May 1992, early in the morning, a delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mr. Frèdèric Maurice, 39, died at the civilian hospital in Sarajevo of injuries received the previous day.

In September 1990 Frèdèric Maurice became my assistant at the Directorate of Operations. His keen intelligence, his vast experience of operational matters and his communicative nature, coupled with a sense of constructive criticism, were always of invaluable help. Yet he found that his role as adviser, centred as it was on theory and analysis, was too inactive, too far removed from the decisions which shape the actual course of operations; because of this, every so often he felt the need to take the lead on an assignment in the field. In April 1991, for instance, he went to Iraqi Kurdistan and the Basrah region to assess needs in the aftermath of the Gulf war and launch major relief programmes there; in July 1991 he was in charge of prisoner exchange operations in Slovenia.

In April and May ICRC President Cornelio Sommaruga carried out missions in Switzerland, Portugal and Spain.