The High Contracting Parties have only met to decide to defer their responsibilities. It is a supreme irony that, on the 50 th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, a conference that was set up to bring back to the limelight the plight of the protected population in the Occupied Territories lasts only 10 minutes.
Today marks a scandalously missed opportunity to reaffirm international humanitarian law.
At todays meeting the High Contracting Parties failed to demonstrate a serious commitment to ensure protection for people in the territories occupied by Israel in particular, and to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law in general. Israel, as a High Contracting Party, has been violating the Fourth Geneva Convention for more than 30 years, when it carries out wilful killings extrajudicially, when it tortures or when it indiscriminately uses force, Amnesty International said. The High Contracting Parties themselves however have violated their obligation enshrined in Article 1 of the Convention, to ensure respect for the Fourth Geneva Convention. Instead of studying ways to enforce compliance with the obligations of the Convention, the meeting was a simple procedural one and was concluded after 10 minutes. Even worse, it set no date for a substantive discussion and decisions on enforcement measures, confining itself to the postponement of the meeting sine die .