The Geneva Convention

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

This document (or rather series of documents) has been invoked constantly over the past two years, first to criticize American treatment of Afghan prisoners and now to criticize Iraqi treatment of American POWs, etc.

Was the Geneva Convention crafted as a response to German and Japanese atrocities in WWII? Who was initially party to it? What figures were instrumental in its creation?

And here's two big questions: since the late '40s, has any war ever, anywhere been run according to the Geneva Convention? My general feeling is that if a nation is craven or desperate enough to wage war, the G.C. won't be too important to them.

Second question: has the G.C. generally been used as a tool of the weak against the powerful, or vice-versa as Rumsfeld is now trying to use it?

― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 28 March 2003 19:17 (twenty-three years ago)

I would also like to know why nobody on the neo-synth-pop bandwagon has chosen "Geneva Convention" as a band name.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 28 March 2003 19:22 (twenty-three years ago)

Better name: 'Warsaw Convention' (relates to compensation formulae for baggage lost by airlines).

I urge you to read 'The Folded Lie' a novel by Jeremy Cooper, even though I didn't finish it.

Jonathan Coe chose it as his book of 1998 thus:

Jeremy Cooper's The Folded Lie...was quite unlike any other novel published this year: a bold, radical, almost embarrassingly direct assault on modern complacencies, both political and artistic. It begins with the post-war execution of Japanese leaders and ends with the trial of John Major for war crimes committed during the Gulf conflict. Seamlessly interweaving the public and private, the book deals in complex ideas while paying scrupulous attention to the inner lives of its characters, and is a page-turner to boot. How can such a magnificently engaged and engaging novel have met with such silence?

- The Guardian 12 December 1998

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 28 March 2003 19:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Nick, why didn't you finish it?

― Tag (Tag), Friday, 28 March 2003 21:50 (twenty-three years ago)

err.. I got distracted by girls.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 28 March 2003 21:57 (twenty-three years ago)

it's just another example to prove the worthlessness of treaties. the only countries that follow them are the ones we wouldn't need to worry about in the first place.

― keith (keithmcl), Saturday, 29 March 2003 02:04 (twenty-three years ago)

Is that some kind of hott Repulican joke?

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 29 March 2003 02:22 (twenty-three years ago)

I submit for the bridge players, The Blackwood Convention and the ever popular

Fairfield Convention

― Skottie, Saturday, 29 March 2003 20:22 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

Once when I heard Gnome Chompsky speak, he said something about the US not having signed the Geneva Conventions. With the recent uproar about torture and all, I decided to try to find out. The ICRC (red cross) website has a PDF file that lists the countries that are party to the Conventions. The US ratified the Geneva Conventions of 1949 in 1955, but with a "Reservation/Declaration" (defined as: "unilateral statement, however phrased or named, made by a State when ratifying, whereby it purports to exclude or to modify the legal effect of certain provisons of the treaty in their application to that State").

The US has not ratified Protocols I and II of 1977 (which I think are the ones that deal with treatment of prisoners - maybe someone can enlighten me).

Almost every other country in the world has ratified those protocols.

The countries that have not ratified the Protocols of 1977 are:

Afghanistan
Andorra
Azerbaijan
Bhutan
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Israel
Japan
Morocco
Myanmar
Nepal
Pakistan
Papua New Guinea
Philippines
Singapore
Somalia
Sri Lanka
Sudan
Thailand
Turkey
Tuvalu
USA (as mentioned)

― Maria D., Tuesday, 8 June 2004 13:59 (twenty-two years ago)

So what parts of the Geneva Conventions apply to US? What kind of enforcement is there for violations of the GC? Anyone know more?

― Maria D., Tuesday, 8 June 2004 14:02 (twenty-two years ago)

My googling has revealed that both Reagan and Clinton submitted proposals to Congress to ratify Protocol II, but Congress didn't act on the proposals. Anyone know more?

― Maria D., Tuesday, 8 June 2004 14:37 (twenty-two years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.