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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-09-24 Daily Xml
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Geneva Conventions 70th Anniversary

Ms MICHAELS (Enfield) (15:20): I rise today to talk about one of the most important international works of the 20th century. On 12 August 2019, while we were on our winter break, the international community celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions. In the last few years, we have had the opportunity to remember some significant anniversaries of many international war events, including the ending of Word War II in 1945. In its aftermath, the international community came together to ensure that the atrocities that occurred during that war never happened again.

Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, as I am sure you are aware, the Geneva Conventions are a series of four agreements that provide a broad outline of the rules of war. The first Geneva Convention is an agreement to protect sick and wounded soldiers on land during war. The second Geneva Convention protects wounded, sick and shipwrecked military personnel at sea during war and is an update of the Hague Convention of 1907. The third Geneva Convention applies to prisoners of war and was adopted for the first time in 1929, largely as a result of World War I.

While the first three Geneva Conventions were updates of previous conventions, the fourth was also adopted at that time and provides protection to civilians, including those living in occupied territory. The fourth Geneva Convention is a direct consequence of the horrors inflicted on civilians during World War II.

Thankfully, we in Australia have enjoyed a largely peaceful existence, but the same cannot be said for many countries around the world. Like many other Australians, I live in this wonderful country because my family was displaced by military occupation. Sadly, in the last 70 years the world has not necessarily become a more peaceful place. Instead, since the end of World War II, the world has become, in many cases, a more violent place and the nature of conflicts has certainly changed significantly, as seen in the recent drone attacks on Saudi oilfields.

No longer is it nation against nation; now armed conflicts often involve non-state actors against nation states. The changes we have witnessed in armed conflicts must compel the international community to recommit to the principles of the Geneva Conventions signed on 12 August 1949. We must ensure that humanitarian treatment of both soldiers and civilians is protected in these destructive conflicts.

It is clear that the conventions have not stopped humanitarian abuses of soldiers or civilians in armed conflicts. In 1929, Germany was a signatory to the updated Hague Conventions on the civilised treatment of prisoners of war, yet that did not prevent the horrendous conditions and treatment of prisoners inside their military prison camps and civilian concentration camps during World War II.

Sadly, we continue to witness the abuse of civilians in armed conflicts around the world, which raises the question: have the Geneva Conventions failed? I do not believe so. The conventions serve as a moral imperative. They speak to a world that the international community strives to achieve, much the same way as our laws work in this place. The diligent enforcement of our laws strives to make our state a better, safer place to live and work. In the same way, we must keep advocating to ensure that the international community is resolute in enforcing the Geneva Conventions.

I am fearful that the world is moving away from a cooperative international approach to resolving conflicts and international issues. The 70th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions presents us all with the opportunity to reflect on the benefits of multilateralism to the international community and the values for which they stand. Governments must recommit themselves to the humanitarian principles espoused in the Geneva Conventions and commit to striving for a world devoid of humanitarian abuses. That is the world I want to live in and the world I want to see my children live in.

The international community must remain resolute in its commitment to these conventions and continue to fight to ensure that our vision for a world without humanitarian abuses becomes a reality.

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