Summary

The development of international humanitarian law has undoubtedly been a success story. Its standards are one of the most detailed in international law, and its main contractual grounds are being accepted by almost all countries currently in existence. However, the development in the implementation and enforcement of the humanitarian law is nowhere near as perfect.

The aim of this article is to show that national implementation may be the key to ensuring observance of the rules of international humanitarian rights on the international level as well.

The objective of ensuring the observance of the rules of international law in future conflicts is certainly achieved more effectively by prevention than by dealing with the consequences. Therefore, in order to assess the relevance of the current legal framework, we first need to view the requirements set in relation to the obligation of the countries to prevent violations, that is, to make certain preparations before a conflict. The aim of this article is to illustrate the fact that the focus should be on preventive measures. In the context of humanitarian law it could be said that it is the preventive measures that make up the so-called implementation of rights, while punitive and other measures that are used during a conflict or after it are the enforcement of rights.
The author analyses the measures of both these categories and the scope of the first joint article of the Geneva conventions in the light of topical issues of humanitarian law and comes to a conclusion that the Treaties themselves contain sufficient measures for the implementation and enforcement of humanitarian rights.