WHEREAS the Republic—
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is committed to international humanitarian law, and particularly the law on armed conflict; |
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recognises the general principle of the protection of the civilian population against the effects of hostilities; |
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also recognises the principle of international law that the right of the parties to an armed conflict to choose methods or means of warfare is not unlimited; |
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further recognises the principle that prohibits or restricts the use in armed conflicts of weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering; |
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acknowledges the need to prohibit the use of weapons which inflict excessive injury or suffering on combatants or renders their death inevitable; |
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acceded to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be deemed to be excessively injurious or to have indiscriminate effects of 10 October 1980 and its original three Protocols on 13 September 1995, Protocol IV on 13 October 1995 and the amended Protocol II on 26 June 1998; and |
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is obliged in terms of international law, and in particular international humanitarian law, to incorporate the Convention and its Protocols into South African law by means of national legislation, and to further provide for appropriate penal sanctions, |
BE IT THEREFORE ENACTED by the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa, as follows:—
Statistics Act, 1999
