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Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field. Geneva, 12 August 1949.

Commentary - Art. 64. Final provisions

ARTICLE 64

-- REGISTRATION WITH THE UNITED NATIONS

[p.414] It is now laid down that the Geneva Convention of 1949 is to be registered with the Secretariat of the United Nations, just as it was provided previously that the Convention of 1929 was to be deposited in the archives of the League of Nations. States Members of the United Nations are obliged to have the international treaties which they conclude registered. If this were not done, they would not be able to invoke them before an organ of the United Nations (1), and there is always the possibility that a dispute regarding the application or interpretation of the Convention may be brought before the International Court of Justice, as a resolution of the Diplomatic Conference of 1949 in fact recommends. (2) Registration with the United Nations also helps to make treaties more widely known.

The obligation to register the Convention is not, however, a condition of its validity, which results solely from the procedure laid down in Articles 57

to 61, which we have just been studying.

It is naturally the Swiss federal Council which has to arrange for the registration of the Convention with the Secretariat of the United Nations, just as it has to inform the latter of any ratifications, accessions and denunciations which it receives.

* (1) [(1) p.414] See Article 18 of the Covenant of the League

of Nations and Article 102 of the United Nations Charter;

(2) [(2) p.414] See Resolution 1 below, page 431;