WUNRN
GENEVA CONVENTIONS & PROTOCOLS -
INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW - PROTECTION OF WOMEN & CHILDREN - CIVILIANS
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Direct Link to Full Geneva
Conventions of 1949 on International Humanitarian Law:
Additional Translations: http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/publication/p0173.htm
The four Geneva Conventions of 12
August 1949 are international treaties, ratified or acceded to by virtually all
States.
The Geneva Conventions
comprise four treaties,
and three additional protocols, that establish the standards of international
law for the humanitarian treatment of war. The singular term Geneva
Convention denotes the agreements of 1949, negotiated in the aftermath of
the Second
World War (1939–45), which updated the terms of the first three treaties
(1864, 1906, 1929), and added a fourth treaty. The articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949)
extensively defined the basic, wartime rights of prisoners (civil and
military); established protections for the wounded; and established protections
for the civilians in and around a war zone. The treaties of 1949 were ratified,
in whole or with reservations, by 194 countries.[1]
Moreover, the Geneva Convention also defines the rights and protections
afforded to non-combatants, yet, because the Geneva Conventions are about
people in war, the articles do not address warfare proper —
the use of weapons
of war — which is the subject of the Hague Conventions (First Hague
Conference, 1899; Second Hague Conference 1907), and the bio–chemical
warfare Geneva Protocol (Protocol for the Prohibition of
the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of
Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, 1929). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions
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"The Geneva Conventions and
their Additional Protocols are at the core of international humanitarian law,
the body of international law that regulates the conduct of armed conflict and
seeks to limit its effects. They specifically protect people who are not
taking part in the hostilities (civilians, health workers and aid workers) and
those who are no longer participating in the hostilities, such as wounded, sick
and shipwrecked soldiers and prisoners of war."
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Bringing the Commentaries
on the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols to the 21st Century
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