Page 89 - ACTL_Win23

In 1922 a Convention of the five victorious countries attempted to deal with submarine warfare and the use of gas, but France refused to sign and it came to nothing.
A further attempt to deal with the poison gas issue, this time successful, occurred in 1925. This had been dealt with by the Treaty of Ver- sailles in 1919, but additional signatories were added and the prohibition on the use of gas was extended to bacteriological warfare. The initia- tive resulted in a Protocol.
It took some time, but the Convention of 1929 succeeded in creating the third Geneva Con- vention. Profiting from the experiences of the First World War, it dealt with the situation of prisoners of war. It was this Convention that es- tablished that all combatants must wear an iden- tity token, the famous “dog tag,” to enable the identification of the dead and wounded. It also established the principle that no prisoner can be required to disclose any information to his cap- tors except name, rank, age and service number. Although Japan had ratified the first conven- tion, it refused to ratify the third. This was one of its excuses for its mercilessly ill treatment of prisoners of war during the Second World War.
In 1930 another stab at regulating submarine warfare succeeded in establishing that subma- rines may not sink a merchant vessel without warning and without arranging for passengers and crew to get to safety. Just permitting them to embark in lifeboats was not good enough. They had to be allowed to get to shore or to another merchant vessel. This Treaty was ignored in the Second World War, though not because it was not formally a part of the Geneva Conventions.
The savagery of the Second World War prompt- ed the promulgation of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, the prime focus of which was the protection of civilians. Hitherto, the Conventions had dealt with combatants, but the experience of the wholesale massacre of ci-
vilian populations between 1939 and 1945 provoked extensive arti- cles dealing with the treatment of civilians in time of war. The 1949 Convention collected, amended and extended the three previous Conventions, as well as incorpo- rating provisions found in oth- er treaties and added the broad provisions regarding civilians caught up in conflicts between states.
Three Protocols followed the 1949 Convention: the first two in 1977. They sought to improve the legal protection for civilians and the wound- ed. The first Protocol dealt with those affected by international conflicts and the second with those affected by non-international conflicts: civil wars. Two Protocols were needed because some states were not prepared
to grant the same degree of protection in both cases.
There was a third Protocol in 2005, which introduced a symbol, addi- tional to the Red Cross and the Red Crescent for those countries who preferred not to use a symbol that bore either Christian or Muslim con- notations. For them the Red Crystal was created.
One hundred and ninety-four nations are party to the Geneva Con- vention. One hundred and ninety-two nations belong to the United Nations organization. The process for becoming a party is a bit odd, though standard procedure for international treaties. First a represen- tative of a nation will sign. Then the nation will ratify the treaty, au- thorized by an act of the nation’s legislature. The ratification will be deposited with the Swiss Federal Council in Geneva, which is where the Convention itself is deposited, if you would like to go and look at it. There are time limits for signing and for ratification. If a nation wishes to become a party to the treaty after the time limits have expired, it can
“Adhere” to the treaty. There is also provision for withdrawing from the treaty. This is called, in the quaint vocabulary of international diploma- cy, “Denunciation” Without such provision, it would not be possible to withdraw without the consent of all the other parties: it is, after all a contract and normal rules of contract law apply.
There have been many other treaties unrelated to the Geneva Conven- tion, all of which have been efforts to make war more civil (an oxymo- ron if ever there was one), such as the prohibition of: the development, production and stockpiling of bacteriological and toxic weapons; weap- ons the primary effect of which is to injure by fragments that cannot be detected by X-ray; mines and booby traps; chemical weapons; genocide; and others.
So long as there are nations, and so long as they are governed by men, there will probably be wars. And war is hell. Thanks to Jean Henri Dunant and his friends, a little less hellish.
David Roberts
West Vancouver, BC
WINTER 2023
JOURNAL 88
How is the Convention enforced? Article 49 provides that all “High Contracting Parties” shall enact legislation permitting the prosecution of those who violate the provisions of the treaty. Extradition would be available in the ordinary way, to acquire jurisdiction over someone beyond the jurisdiction of the particular country’s courts. In addition, now the International Criminal Court can enforce the provisions of the Convention and the United Nations Organization can constitute special tribunals to prosecute offences, as it did for Rwanda.