28/11/2008 Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
“National parliaments and international parliamentary assemblies have a primary responsibility to promote the full implementation of international humanitarian law, which provides that refugees and displaced persons are safely returned to their homes, once hostilities have ceased,” said John Greenway (United Kingdom, EDG) last Monday in St. Petersburg, representing PACE President Lluís Maria de Puig at a conference on international humanitarian law. This event, organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly, was dedicated to the 140th Anniversary of the 1868 St. Petersburg Declaration, the first international agreement prohibiting the use of certain weapons and methods of warfare, that cause superfluous injury or unnecessary human suffering.