Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office: Training

(asked on 30th November 2021) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what (a) training and (b) awareness raising (i) Ministers and (ii) officials in her Department receive on their obligations under the Geneva Conventions Act 1957 and subsequent legislation not to commit, aid, abet or procure the commission by any other person of a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions.


Answered by
James Cleverly Portrait
James Cleverly
Home Secretary
This question was answered on 8th December 2021

The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols are at the core of international humanitarian law (IHL). FCDO staff undertake training through the International Academy which includes modules on the Conventions and other aspects of IHL. More detailed training is available for those who work in this field. Additionally the FCDO undertook to produce a voluntary report on the domestic implementation of IHL, including the Conventions. This report was published on GOV.UK in 2019 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/implementation-of-international-humanitarian-law-at-domestic-level-voluntary-report. In response to a pledge made at the International Committee of the Red Cross Quadrennial Conference, the UK is promoting and assisting other states to produce similar reports, in conjunction with the British Red Cross, and have produced a toolkit in several languages to assist them to do so. In 2019 the UK hosted a conference at Lancaster House to mark 70 years of the Conventions and to address the challenges to compliance.

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