GENEVA (AP) — As the world’s best-known manual on the protection of civilians, prisoners and wounded soldiers in wartime turns 75, it has been widely ignored — from Gaza to Syria, from Ukraine to Myanmar and beyond — and its defenders are calling for a new commitment to international humanitarian law.
The Geneva Conventions, which have been adopted by almost all countries in the world since their final adoption on August 12, 1949, have become topical again as armed militias and national armed forces regularly ignore the rules of war.
“International humanitarian law is being challenged, ignored and undermined to justify violence,” Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, which monitors the treaties, said on Monday.
“The world must recommit to this robust protective framework for armed conflict, one that is based on protecting lives rather than justifying death,” she said.
These treaties, which date back to the 19th century, aim to establish rules for the conduct of war. They prohibit torture and sexual violence, require humane treatment of prisoners and require the search for missing persons.
The conventions “reflect a global consensus that all wars have limits,” Spoljaric told reporters at ICRC headquarters in Geneva. “The dehumanization of both enemy combatants and civilian populations is a path to ruin and disaster.”
According to the Red Cross, the conventions are needed now more than ever: it has counted more than 120 active conflicts worldwide, six times as many as at the 50th anniversary in 1999.
Today, many countries and fighters are exploiting loopholes in international humanitarian law or interpreting it to their own advantage. Hospitals, schools and ambulances are under fire, aid workers and civilians are being killed, and countries are denying access to prisoners.
