gunduz-aktan-kitap-soyledikleri-ve-yazdiklari

SÖYLEDİKLERİ VE YAZDIKLARI
Statement made at the “International Conference on the
Protection of Victims of War”, 1 September 1993
(After the statement by Boutros Gali and Flavio Cotti)
Mr. President
This is a timely conference.
We can take stock of recent experiences and try to devise ways
and means to overcome difficulties. We can also undertake a soulsearching
exercise to see where we made mistakes, if any.
It is obvious that international humanitarian law has been
increasingly frequently and atrociously violated in the recent
conflicts. What is more, we witness almost daily all kinds of
violations on our TV screens. Our peoples sharply aware of the
shortcomings of humanitarian efforts and extremely sensitised to the
pains of the victims expect of us immediate, practical and effective
response to this situation.
As a first step we will give them a thoroughly negotiated text of the
Declaration, showing that we know the problem and that we
committed ourselves to doing our best to ensure universal respect for
the law.
However, unless we correctly assess the situation, our renewed
commitments would be doomed to failure. In the past also, Parties to
conflicts must have violated the rules of their customs and the law
much more frequently and flagrantly than national histories
admitted. The main characteristic of the present armed conflicts,
however, is that the Parties’ non-observance of the rules embodied in
the Geneve Conventions has turned into a contempt for them.
New developments related to armed conflicts have adversely
affected the behaviour of the Parties. It is quite possible that this is
Gündüz Aktan
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