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The European Convention on Human Rights: A useful complement to the Geneva Conventions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2010

Karel Vasak*
Affiliation:
Member of the Secretariat-General of the Council of Europe

Extract

Although by the very nature of its mission the Red Cross is concerned primarily with man's suffering, its efforts to provide the utmost possible protection for the “victim” dovetail with the vast present-day movement for the international defence of human rights. There is nothing fortuitous in this. As a result particularly of the 1949 Conventions, the humanitarian principles underlying the work of the Red Cross have been incorporated in a body of law and the distinction between this “humanitarian” law and international law in general is becoming less and less marked. If humanitarian lawstill deserves a place to itself, this is due less to its intrinsic character than to themethods used to ensure its observance.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 1965

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References

page 399 note 1 For a full study of this Convention, see my publication: La Convention européenne des droits de l'homme, Paris 1964 Google Scholar; Librairie générate de droit et de jurisprudence, 327 pages.

page 400 note 1 Another Protocol—No. 4—which was signed on September 16, 1963, has not yet become effective.

page 410 note 1 For detailed argument see my study, op. cit. pp. 77–79.

page 410 note 2 Cf. my article “The European Convention on Human Rights beyond the frontiers of Europe”, in The International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 10 1963, pp. 12061231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar