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Dissemination of the Geneva Conventions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2010

Frédéric Siordet
Frédéric Siordet*
Affiliation:
Member of the International Committee of the Red Cross
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Extract

Amongst the articles common to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 can be found the following provisions, the whole of the first part of which is identical in all four treaties:

Geneva Convention for the amelioration of the condition of the wounded and sick in armed forces in the field (art. 47)

and

Geneva Convention for the amelioration of wounded, sick and shipwrecked members of armed forces at sea (art. 48)

“The High Contracting Parties undertake, in time of peace as in time of war, to disseminate the text of the present Convention as widely as possible in their respective countries, and, in particular, to include the study thereof in their programmes of military and, if possible, civjl instruction, so that the principles thereof may become known to the entire population, in particular to the armed fighting forces, the medical personnel and the chaplains.”

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of the Red Cross (1961 - 1997) , Volume 5 , Issue 47 , February 1965 , pp. 59 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 1965

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Footnotes

1

This paper (of which we now publish extracts) and that of Mr. des Cilleuls were presented to the Second International Congress of the Neutrality of Medicine, Paris. November 1964. (Ed.)

References

page 61 note 1 In order to judge the effectiveness of the 1929 Conventions, one need only compare mortality rates:

a) in prisoner-of-war camps beneficiary from the Conventions,

b) in prisoner-of-war camps in which the Conventions were not legally in force, in the absence of ratification by one or other of the belligerent parties;

c) in civilian concentration camps for which no Convention existed.

In case a) the mortality rate was generally about 10%, that is to say, normal. In cases b) and c) the rate was, according to the camp 30%, 60%, even as high as 90%.

One can make a similar comparison in so far as delayed consequences of internment were concerned.