International Law and Human Rights

INTERNATIONAL LAW

In the Sixth Committee of the General Assembly Greece supports all the UN efforts and initiatives aiming at enhancing and developing international law.

Greece was one of the EU countries that actively participated in the negotiations leading to the adoption in 2004 of the UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their Property. 

Greece believes that consensus should be reached within the UN concerning the need to elaborate as a matter of priority a universal document banning reproductive human cloning.

Greece like all the EU Members considers the implementation of international humanitarian law being of crucial importance in times of armed conflict. Greece is a party to the Protocols Additional to both Geneva Conventions of 1949 and relating to the protection of victims of armed conflicts and has made the declaration provided for under article 90 of the First Protocol.

Greece is a strong advocate of the ICC, an institution that is established to prosecute those responsible for acts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity and which through its activities can play an important role in developing international humanitarian law. Greece attaches great importance to the principle of complementarity of the Rome Statute that stresses the need to ensure that war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity are penalized, and thus can be prosecuted, within domestic system. National efforts are made in Greece to enforce all the above. 

Greece fully supports the Secretary General's recommendations concerning the necessity to strengthen protection of the UN personnel, who work in the most difficult of situations in today’s peace-keeping missions. Greece is strongly supportive of all efforts in the Sixth Committee aiming at enhancing the safety and security of UN personnel, both at headquarters and in the field. In this respect Greece places great importance to the speedy conclusion of the work on an Optional Protocol to the 1994 UN Convention on the Safety of UN and Associated personnel that would extend the scope of protection under that Convention.

In addition, Greece attaches great importance to the work of the International Law Commission, which has greatly contributed to the codification and progressive development of international law.