Publication
Minnesota Journal of International Law
Volume
19
Page
327
Year
2010
Abstract
The four Geneva Conventions 1 and the two Additional Protocols of 1977 2 generally lack authoritative mechanisms for interpretation. Interpretation and application of these treaties are principally left to the judgment of the states that are parties to the Geneva Conventions and Protocols 3 and, increasingly, to the International Criminal Court and international tribunals. 4 The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) encourages states parties to comply with their obligations under humanitarian law, but it is not an adjudicative body 5 and rarely publishes its authoritative interpretations of the Geneva Conventions and Protocols. 6 Article 90 of Additional Protocol I authorizes the establishment of the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission. 7 While seventy states have accepted the competence of the Commission - which has been ready for activities since Article 90 came into force in 1991 - the parties to armed conflicts have yet to call upon it. 8
Recommended Citation
David Weissbrodt, The Approach of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to Interpreting and Applying International Humanitarian Law, 19 Minn. J. Int'l L. 327 (2010), available at https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/faculty_articles/222.
