Launching of the International Media Campaign
against Anti-personnel Landmines by the ICRC and
National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
Geneva, Switzerland
22 November 1995
The impasse at the Review Conference in Vienna had two important consequences for the ICRC. First, it convinced the organization that it was imperative to launch an international advertising campaign, the first in its history in favour of the prohibition of a weapon – the anti-personnel mine. Second, as the negotiations on a revised Protocol II had foundered largely on the question of the perceived overriding military utility of antipersonnel mines, the ICRC decided to commission a historical study of the military use and effectiveness of anti-personnel mines.
In launching the campaign, ICRC President Cornelio Sommaruga emphasized that the dictates of public conscience would be instrumental in finding a solution to the landmine crisis and called upon the media to play an important role in this regard.
President of the International Committee of the Red Cross
Press Conference
Geneva
22 November 1995
Dear friends and colleagues from the international media,
I have invited you here today not only to speak of the humanitarian tragedy of anti-personnel landmines, but also to announce an historic step for the International Committee of the Red Cross: the launching of an international media campaign to stigmatize these barbarous weapons. Despite your sustained work and ours, the scourge of anti-personnel landmines continues unabated. In the hour we meet here, and in every hour which passes, three people will be killed
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