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Convention (II) for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea. Geneva, 12 August 1949.

Commentary - Chapter I : General provisions

[p.24] CHAPTER I

GENERAL PROVISIONS

Like all treaties, the Geneva Conventions contain clauses of a general nature and implementing provisions which are more limited in scope.

In the 1929 Convention, as in the earlier Conventions, the two types of provision were intermingled; that was also the case in the Hague Conventions relative to maritime Warfare, where the general provisions were few in number. In the Tenth Hague Convention of 1907, for instance, they were contained in Articles 18

and 22

When it was proposed to revise the earlier Conventions and draw up a new one, it was decided to arrange the provisions methodically. Each of the four draft texts prepared by the International Committee of the Red Cross began with the principal provisions of a general character, in particular those which enunciated fundamental principles and so should, by rights, be repeated in the various Conventions. This more logical arrangement had the additional advantage of preparing the way for a combination of the four Conventions in a single instrument, if such a step was contemplated. The suggested arrangement was adopted by the XVIIth International Red Cross Conference, and later by the Diplomatic Conference.

Most of the Articles in this Chapter are accordingly to be found in identical, or slightly modified, form in the three other Conventions. Attention will be drawn to each individual case.