<P> Between 1916 and 1918, the ICRC published a number of postcards with scenes from the POW camps . The pictures showed the prisoners in day - to - day activities such as the distribution of letters from home . The intention of the ICRC was to provide the families of the prisoners with some hope and solace and to alleviate their uncertainties about the fate of their loved ones . After the end of the war, the ICRC organized the return of about 420,000 prisoners to their home countries . In 1920, the task of repatriation was handed over to the newly founded League of Nations, which appointed the Norwegian diplomat and scientist Fridtjof Nansen as its "High Commissioner for Repatriation of the War Prisoners". His legal mandate was later extended to support and care for war refugees and displaced persons when his office became that of the League of Nations "High Commissioner for Refugees". Nansen, who invented the Nansen passport for stateless refugees and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922, appointed two delegates from the ICRC as his deputies . </P> <P> A year before the end of the war, the ICRC received the 1917 Nobel Peace Prize for its outstanding wartime work . It was the only Nobel Peace Prize awarded in the period from 1914 to 1918 . In 1923, the Committee adopted a change in its policy regarding the selection of new members . Until then, only citizens from the city of Geneva could serve in the Committee . This limitation was expanded to include Swiss citizens . As a direct consequence of World War I, an additional protocol to the Geneva Convention was adopted in 1925 which outlawed the use of suffocating or poisonous gases and biological agents as weapons . Four years later, the original Convention was revised and the second Geneva Convention "relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War" was established . The events of World War I and the respective activities of the ICRC significantly increased the reputation and authority of the Committee among the international community and led to an extension of its competencies . </P> <P> As early as in 1934, a draft proposal for an additional convention for the protection of the civil population during an armed conflict was adopted by the International Red Cross Conference . Unfortunately, most governments had little interest in implementing this convention, and it was thus prevented from entering into force before the beginning of World War II . </P> <P> In the Interwar period, Bolivia and Paraguay were disputing possession of the Gran Chaco - a desert region between the two countries . The dispute escalated into a full - scale conflict in 1932 . During the war the ICRC visited 18,000 Bolivian prisoners of war and 2,500 Paraguayan detainees . With the help of the ICRC both countries made improvements to the conditions of the detainees . </P>

The international committee of the red cross (icrc