The Undertaking to Respect and Ensure Respect in All Circumstances: From Tiny Seed to Ripening Fruit

1999 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 3-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frits Kalshoven
Keyword(s):  
International Committee ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Legal Obligation ◽  
State Party ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
The Law ◽  
Negative Duty ◽  
War Victims

The four Geneva Conventions of 1949 for the protection of war victims open with an unusual provision: it is the undertaking of the contracting states ‘to respect and to ensure respect for [the Conventions] in all circumstances’. Why reaffirm that contracting states are bound to ‘respect’ their treaty obligations? Does ‘all circumstances’ add anything special to this fundamental rule of the law of treaties? And what about ‘ensure respect’: should that not be regarded as implicit in ‘respect’, in the sense of a positive counterpart to the negative duty not to violate the terms of the Conventions?I readily admit that common Article 1 was not the first provision of the Conventions to capture my attention: there was, after all, so much to discover in these impressive structures that Article 1 could easily be passed over as an innocuous sort of opening phrase. Two things have changed this. One was the insistence of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that a State Party to the Conventions is not only itself bound to comply with its obligations under these instruments but is under a legal obligation to make sure that other States Parties do likewise. The more this thesis of the ICRC was forced upon us, the less likely it seemed to me that this could indeed be an international legal obligation upon contracting states.

New Life for the Laws of War

1981 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 764-783 ◽  
Author(s):  
George H. Aldrich
Keyword(s):  
International Committee ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Active Participant ◽  
The Past ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
The Law ◽  
War Victims ◽  
Geneva Conference

On December 11, 1977, the Swiss Government opened for signature two Protocols to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 on the Protection of War Victims. Forty-four governments signed either one or both Protocols on that day, and, by September 1979, 62 governments had signed one or both Protocols. The Protocols entered into force on December 7, 1978, and by October 1980, were in force for 15 states. One of these Protocols develops the law applicable in international armed conflicts, and the other expands the protections currently accorded to the victims of noninternational armed conflicts by Article 3 common to the 1949 Conventions. Together the Protocols represent many years of effort, first by the International Committee of the Red Cross, and more recently by more than one hundred governments assembled in conference. During more than 8 months of conference sessions over 4 years, these governments struggled to correct the perceived deficiencies in the law and to develop and articulate new rules to improve the protections available to the victims of armed conflicts. Each government drew on its own experiences, and the result may reasonably be thought to be the composite reaction by the international community to the perceived inhumanities of wars during the past quarter century. Since we shall probably have to wait at least another quarter century before new efforts are made to develop the law further, it would seem appropriate to begin to analyze the two new Protocols and to draw some conclusions about them. This article, written by an active participant in the Geneva conference, attempts to contribute to this process by analyzing a few of the more significant developments in the law contained in Protocol I, that is, the Protocol dealing with international armed conflicts.

Agora: The U.S. Decision not to Ratify Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions on the Protection of War Victims (Cont’d)

1988 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. 784-787 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham D. Sofaer
Keyword(s):  
International Committee ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
Legal Adviser ◽  
War Victims ◽  
The U.S

The October 1987 issue of the Journal contains an article written by Hans-Peter Gasser, the Legal Adviser to the Directorate of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), on the U.S. decision not to ratify Protocol I (on international armed conflicts) to the 1949 Geneva Conventions on the Protection of War Victims. Unfortunately, the Journal did not include any response by the administration, but only the President’s necessarily brief letter of transmittal to the Senate of January 18, 1987, recommending advice and consent to ratification of Protocol II (on noninternational conflicts). The President’s letter of transmittal was not intended to be an exhaustive statement of the U.S. objections to Protocol I, nor does it purport to be such.

Implementation of international humanitarian law - National measures: Information received by the International Committee of the Red Cross on implementation measures taken by the States at the national level

1994 ◽  
Vol 34 (302) ◽  
pp. 464-469
Author(s):  
María Teresa Dutli
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
National Level ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
International Conference ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
Effective Compliance ◽  
War Victims

The importance of adopting national measures to implement international humanitarian law has been stressed on many occasions. It was repeated in the Final Declaration of the International Conference for the Protection of War Victims (Geneva, 30 August–1 September 1993), which reaffirmed the obligation laid down in Article 1 common to the four Geneva Conventions to respect and ensure respect for international humanitarian law in order to protect the victims of war. The Declaration urged all States to make every effort to “adopt and implement, at the national level, all appropriate regulations, laws and measures to ensure respect for international humanitarian law applicable in the event of armed conflict and to punish violations thereof”. The Conference thus reasserted the need to bring about more effective compliance with that law.

Help to War Victims in Nigeria

1968 ◽  
Vol 8 (93) ◽  
pp. 626-633 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Institutions ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
The Third ◽  
Considerable Cost ◽  
Massive Scale ◽  
Governmental Institutions ◽  
To Come ◽  
War Victims ◽  
Work Up

In our last month's issue we gave an account of ICRC relief work up to the end of October 1968 in Nigeria and the secessionist province Biafra. This clearly brought out the scale and very considerable cost of the mission which will continue for months to come. As the financial situation had reached the crisis stage, the International Committee invited representatives of governments, National Societies and international institutions, able to help it, to a meeting in Geneva, in order to explain the facts which justify not only the massive scale of, but also support for, the Red Cross action. There were in fact three meetings, one of National Societies, the second of representatives of governments and inter-governmental institutions and the third of voluntary agencies.

Protection of Civilian Populations Against the Dangers of Indiscriminate Warfare

1967 ◽  
Vol 7 (75) ◽  
pp. 300-311
Author(s):  
Samuel A. Gonard
Keyword(s):  
International Committee ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
International Conference ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
The Hague

We have the honour of enclosing the text of a memorandum dated May 19, 1967, addressed by the International Committee of the Red Cross to the Governments of States parties to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and to the IVth Convention of The Hague of 1907, concerning the laws and customs of war on land. This memorandum bears on the protection of civilian populations against the dangers of indiscriminate warfare and, in particular, on the implementation of Resolution XXVIII of the XXth International Conference of the Red Cross.

ICRC surgical activities

1991 ◽  
Vol 31 (284) ◽  
pp. 483-490
Author(s):  
Rémi Russbach ◽  
Robin Charles Gray ◽  
Robin Michael Coupland
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Medical Services ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Main Role ◽  
Army Medical ◽  
Geneva Conventions

The surgical activities of the International Committee of the Red Cross stem from the institution's general mandate to protect and assist the victims of armed conflict.The war wounded are thus only one category of the victims included in the ICRC's terms of reference.The ICRC's main role in relation to the war wounded is not to treat them, for this is primarily the responsibility of the governments involved in the conflict and hence their army medical services. The task of the ICRC is first and foremost to ensure that the belligerents are familiar with the provisions of the Geneva Conventions and apply them, that is, care for members of the enemy armed forces as well as their own and afford medical establishments and personnel the protection to which they are entitled.

Further participation in the Geneva Conventions

1968 ◽  
Vol 8 (89) ◽  
pp. 406-406
Keyword(s):  
International Committee ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
International Review ◽  
Geneva Conventions

In its number for June 1968, the International Review mentioned that 118 States were parties to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949. Since then, the International Committee of the Red Cross has been informed by the Federal Political Department in Berne of the participation by the Kingdom of Lesotho in these Conventions.

UN Peacekeeping Operations: Applicability of International Humanitarian Law and Responsibility for Operations-Related Damage

2000 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 406-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daphna Shraga
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
First Time

In the five decades that followed the Korea operation, where for the first time the United Nations commander agreed, at the request of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to abide by the humanitarian provisions of the Geneva Conventions, few UN operations lent themselves to the applicability of international humanitarian law

A Winding Road to the Additional Protocols (1950–1968)

2020 ◽  
pp. 98-129
Author(s):  
Giovanni Mantilla
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
The United Nations

This chapter traces the events that followed the adoption of Common Article 3 (CA3) in 1949 until 1968. It analyzes formal debates that resurfaced in the United Nations (UN) about revising and developing the international legal rules for armed conflict, which lead to the negotiation of the two Additional Protocols (APs) that complement the 1949 Geneva Conventions. It also explains how the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) rested on its laurels through the extension of CA3 on situations of internal violence that could not be plausibly characterized as armed conflict. The chapter mentions ICRC activities between 1950 and the mid-1960s that reveal persistent efforts to make up for the operation of CA3 in the gray zones. It examines interruption of the reflection of the ICRC by episodes of frustration and abuse that involve concerns about detained persons in diverse internal violent contexts.

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