On the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of St. Petersburg, the International Review of the Red Cross devoted to this important first document of the law of war an article examining the relation between the notion of the “legitimate object” of war as defined in the Declaration and the means of warfare used, whose lawfulness was declared to be limited by their conformance to that legitimate object and by their necessity. Since 1868 the law of international armed conflicts has been supplemented by Protocol I additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which enlarged on the central point of the Preamble to the Declaration of 1868 — i.e. the concept of “maux superflus” (“superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering”); although it was not formulated as such until 1899 in Article 23 e) of the Regulations respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, it may, as we shall demonstrate, be traced back to the Declaration's Preamble. Protocol I broadened the concept's scope of application to include methods of warfare, but it also and above all introduced a new rule of considerable import by narrowing the definition of military objectives that may lawfully be attacked.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has first-hand experience of the real consequences of the many armed conflicts now taking place and of the actual use and effects of weapons. It therefore has a particular interest in ensuring that the law takes into account the realities of the use of weapons in order to effectively reduce the amount of suffering caused in armed conflicts.

The general objective of this Symposium, which was held in April 1993 in Montreux, was to collect the necessary facts and ideas to coordinate future action by bodies that are interested in improving the situation of mine victims and in taking preventive action. More specifically, the aims of the Symposium were to gain as accurate a picture as possible of the actual use of mines and the consequences thereof; to analyse the mechanisms and means currently available to limit this use and to alleviate the suffering of victims, as well as to identify any lacunae in this respect; to decide on the best remedial action; to establish a strategy for coordinating the work of different bodies involved in such action; and to write a report which could be used as a reference for future measures.

One of the recommendations of the April 1993 Symposium was the convening of a meeting of military experts in order to study the military use of antipersonnel mines and possible alternatives.

Concerned about the terrible toll of land-mine injuries around the world, six organizations issued a call in October 1992 for an international ban on the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of antipersonnel mines. Other organizations have taken up the call, and the campaign is already having a big impact. One result of the pressure will be the convening, pursuant to a request by France, of a review conference on the 1980 Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects. This renewed interest in controlling indiscriminate and excessively injurious weapons should not be confined to mines but should extend to other classes of modern antipersonnel weapons as well.

In addition to the religious motivation, another equally old tradition can be said to have played a part in the emergence of the Red Cross Movement. This involved the perception, by the sole means of human intelligence, of an ideal concept of goodness separate from, and in some cases even opposed to, the consideration of a person's immediate interests.