The author of the following important article is president of the Section sociale du Conseil d'Etat français. When, in 1968, he was awarded the René Sand prize at the fourteenth International Conference of the International Council on Social Welfare he delivered a speech on “Human Rights, Social Work and Social Policy”.

The Red Cross was represented not only because many of the delegates were members of our movement but also because the ceremony recalled the memory of Rene Sand, who had been a leading light of the Belgian Red Cross. International Review has published several of his writings, one of which he concluded with the following words revealing the active idealism which was typical of him: “The human instinct, which sometimes goes astray but is more often led astray, tends towards goodwill and peace, not towards war”.

We are grateful to the René Sand prize-winner for having also contributed to our publication.

In its circular No. 478 of 15 April 1970, the International Committee of the Red Cross had the honour to inform you of its work since the XXIst International Conference of the Red Cross with a view to the reaffirmation and development of international humanitarian law applicable in armed conflicts, consistent with several resolutions adopted by that conference.

In its last issue, the International Review published an article on the assistance provided to victims of the civil war in. Jordan since it broke out. We gave some details of the development of the vast and swift relief action undertaken by the Red Cross, up to the end of September 1970 and which was rendered possible thanks to the generous aid from a great number of Red Cross, Red Crescent and Red Lion and Sun National Societies, to which the ICRC had appealed on 24 September. In order to give a more vivid picture of the growing and increasingly imperative undertaking, we shall set forth the more significant events as they succeeded each other during October, bringing our summary up to the end of that month.

We know what work is carried out by the ICRC delegates in Jordan ; we know that, thanks to them and their intervention, as soon as it was possible the relief mission of the ICRC, aided by the National Societies, could be started and developed. One of the delegates in Amman during the civil war, Mr. Louis Jaquinet, relates below some incidents in the danger-fraught life of a delegate during a crisis.

Visit to U.A.R. sailors.—On 5 September, Israeli naval craft picked up in the sea several men from the wrecked Greek vessel “ Maria Kristina ”. There were among them 14 sailors of Egyptian nationality. The ICRC delegation visited them on 7 September, and on 12 September they were released under ICRC auspices.

It was with regret that the International Committee learnt of the death, on 21 October 1970, of Mr. Frédéric Barbey, who was co-opted to the ICRC in 1915 and was at that time active in the work of the International Prisoners of War Agency. In 1921 he became an honorary member and in 1938 again dedicated himself fully to the work of the Red Cross. Devoting himself unstintingly to the institution as soon as the Second World War broke out, as he had done during the First World War, he gave invaluable assistance. International Review had occasion in June 1947, when Mr. Barbey had again become an honorary member of the institution, to mention the important part he played in helping the ICRC to discharge its mission. The following extract from that article concerns his work from 1939 onwards:

On 2 October Princess Beatrix and Prince Claus of the Netherlands visited the International Committee, where they were welcomed by Mr. Marcel A. Naville, President of the ICRC, Mr. Jean Pictet, Committee member, and senior officials. After an address on the ICRC's current activities, they visited the Central Tracing Agency.

The Neutral Commission set up by the ICRC to make assessments of the claims submitted by victims of pseudo-medical experiments made on former detainees of German concentration camps now living in Poland met from 30 September to 3 October 1970 at the headquarters of the ICRC in Geneva. Compensation totalling the sum of DM 3,110,000.—was allocated to 113 persons, whose claims were found to be valid. This brings the total paid by the Federal Republic of Germany, as a result of the Neutral Commission's decisions, to Polish victims of pseudo-medical experiments to DM 26,430,000.—.