Handbook of the international red cross and red crescent movement

Part One
which deals with international humanitarian law, gives the complete text of
the Geneva Conventions of 1949, their 1977 Additional Protocols and the 2005
Additional Protocol. Also included, as in the earlier editions, are other international
texts of general interest for the Movement and its work. These additions to the
Handbook have been successively introduced. In point of fact, the 1977 Additional
Protocols concern the law regulating the conduct of hostilities. The 2005 Additional
Protocol (Protocol III) concerns the adoption of an additional distinctive emblem.
This part also includes other texts of international law (previously listed under the law
of the Hague) Therefore, since the twelfth edition more space has been given to other
conventions and agreements of this type. The following will be found in this edition:
the Declaration of St. Petersburg of 1868, covering the prohibition of certain explosive
projectiles in time of war; the Declaration of The Hague of 1899 prohibiting the use
of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body; the 1907 Hague
Convention No. IV respecting the laws and customs of war on land; , the 1972
Convention on the prohibition of the development, production and stockpiling of
bacteriological (biological) and toxin weapons and on their destruction; the 1976
Convention on the prohibition of military or any other hostile use of environmental
modification techniques; the Convention and Protocols of 1980 on prohibitions or
restrictions on the use of certain conventional weapons which may be deemed to be
excessively injurious or to have indiscriminate effects; subsequent Protocols to this
Convention such as the Protocol on blinding laser weapons and the Protocol on
explosive remnants of war ; extracts of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal
Court . Finally, this part contains a Resolution adopted by the United Nations General
Assembly in 1968, relating to respect for human rights in armed conflict and the Final
Declaration of the International Conference for the protection of war victims.
Two of the texts quoted in the Handbook are not part of international humanitar-
ian law as such. The texts in question, an extract from the 1989 United Nations
Convention on the rights of the child and the Optional Protocol to the Convention
on the rights of the child (25 May 2000) belong in fact to human rights law. Readers
interested in this branch of law should consult collections published by the interna-
tional organizations directly concerned (one such publication is “Human rights -
Collection of international instruments”, published by the United Nations and reg-
ularly updated).