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The 1949 Geneva Conventions followed earlier multilateral treaties that addressed thesame subjects, including the 1864 GWS, the 1907 Hague X, the 1899 and 1907 HagueConventions on the Law of Land Warfare, and the 1929 Geneva Conventions. 149The Commentaries to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, published by the InternationalCommittee of the Red Cross, under the general editorship of Jean S. Pictet, have often beenhelpful in understanding the provisions of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and have often beencited in this manual. As noted by the International Committee of the Red Cross, however, theseCommentaries are not an official interpretation of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which onlyparticipant States would be qualified to give. 15019.16.1 Common Provisions in the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The four 1949 GenevaConventions contain a number of common provisions, i.e., provisions that are substantively thesame (if not identical in text) among the conventions.The four Geneva Conventions have this duplication, in part, because each convention isdesigned to be effective, even if a State only ratifies that particular convention. 151 For example,the list of persons entitled to receive POW status in Article 4 of the GPW is repeated in the GWSand GWS-Sea. 152148 See SENATE EXECUTIVE REPORT 84-9, Geneva Conventions for the Protection of War Victims: Report of theCommittee on Foreign Relations on Executives D, E, F, and G, 82nd Congress, First Session, 32 (Jun. 27, 1955)(“Our Nation has everything to gain and nothing to lose by being a party to the conventions now before the Senate,and by encouraging their most widespread adoption. As emphasized in this report, the requirements of the fourconventions to a very great degree reflect the actual policies of the United States in World War II. The practiceswhich they bind nations to follow impose no burden upon us that we would not voluntarily assume in a futureconflict without the injunctions of formal treaty obligations.”).149 Refer to § 19.5 (1864 GWS); § 19.9 (1907 Hague X); § 19.8 (1899 Hague II and 1907 Hague IV Conventionsand Annexed Regulations Regarding Land Warfare); § 19.13 (1929 Geneva Conventions).150 See, e.g., GWS COMMENTARY Foreword (“Although published by the International Committee, the Commentaryis the personal work of its authors. The Committee, moreoever, whenever called upon for an opinion on a provisionof an international Convention, always takes care to emphasize that only the participant States are qualified, throughconsultation between themselves, to give an oficial and, as it were, authentic interpretation of an intergovernmentaltreaty.”).151 See, e.g., II-B FINAL RECORD OF THE DIPLOMATIC CONFERENCE OF GENEVA OF 1949 257 (“Mr. NAJAR (Israel): ...We have a number of Conventions here, with different signatories, which constitute distinct legal instruments. It isnot at all surprising that one more of them should contain Articles of a more or less similar character; but oneConvention is distinguished from another by being a self-contained legal instrument, and by its signatories.”); id. at283 (“Mr. FILIPPOV (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics): ... In the amendment submitted to us an allusion is madeto Article 20 of the Wounded and Sick Convention. This reference seems to us inadmissible, as the Prisoners ofWar Convention is an entirely independent document and the allusions in its Articles to other Conventions, inparticular the Wounded and Sick, might involve difficulties if the Parties to the conflict were not signatories to bothConventions.”).152 Refer to § 7.3.2 (Persons Entitled to Protection as Wounded, Sick, or Shipwrecked Under the GWS and GWS-Sea).1153