<P> On 12 August 1949, further revisions to the existing two Geneva Conventions were adopted . An additional convention "for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea", now called the second Geneva Convention, was brought under the Geneva Convention umbrella as a successor to the 1907 Hague Convention X . The 1929 Geneva convention "relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War" may have been the second Geneva Convention from a historical point of view (because it was actually formulated in Geneva), but after 1949 it came to be called the third Convention because it came later chronologically than the Hague Convention . Reacting to the experience of World War II, the Fourth Geneva Convention, a new Convention "relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War," was established . Also, the additional protocols of 8 June 1977 were intended to make the conventions apply to internal conflicts such as civil wars . Today, the four conventions and their added protocols contain more than 600 articles, a remarkable expansion when compared to the mere 10 articles in the first 1864 convention . </P> <P> In celebration of its centennial in 1963, the ICRC, together with the League of Red Cross Societies, received its third Nobel Peace Prize . Since 1993, non-Swiss individuals have been allowed to serve as Committee delegates abroad, a task which was previously restricted to Swiss citizens . Indeed, since then, the share of staff without Swiss citizenship has increased to about 35% . </P> <P> On 16 October 1990, the UN General Assembly decided to grant the ICRC observer status for its assembly sessions and sub-committee meetings, the first observer status given to a private organization . The resolution was jointly proposed by 138 member states and introduced by the Italian ambassador, Vieri Traxler, in memory of the organization's origins in the Battle of Solferino . An agreement with the Swiss government signed on 19 March 1993, affirmed the already long - standing policy of full independence of the Committee from any possible interference by Switzerland . The agreement protects the full sanctity of all ICRC property in Switzerland including its headquarters and archive, grants members and staff legal immunity, exempts the ICRC from all taxes and fees, guarantees the protected and duty - free transfer of goods, services, and money, provides the ICRC with secure communication privileges at the same level as foreign embassies, and simplifies Committee travel in and out of Switzerland . </P> <P> The ICRC continued its activities throughout the 1990s . It broke its customary media silence when it denounced the Rwandan Genocide in 1994 . It struggled to prevent the crimes that happened in and around Srebrenica in 1995 but admitted, "We must acknowledge that despite our efforts to help thousands of civilians forcibly expelled from the town and despite the dedication of our colleagues on the spot, the ICRC's impact on the unfolding of the tragedy was extremely limited ." It went public once again in 2007 to decry "major human rights abuses" by Burma's military government including forced labor, starvation, and murder of men, women, and children . </P>

Is the red cross part of the un