International Humanitarian Law

Geneva Conventions

Geneva Conventions

• Made up of 4 treaties and 3 additional protocols.

• Ratified by 194 countries

• Aim is to set a standard for treatment of victims of war.

• Defines rights of those captured during the war.

• Establishing protections for the wounded

• Addresses protections for the civilians in and around a war zone.

• Henri Dunant wrote a book (Memoir of Solferino) in which he proposed a permanent relief agency for humanitarian aid in times of war

• A government treaty recognizing the neutrality of the agency and allowing it to provide aid in war zones.

• This led to the Red Cross and the Geneva Conventions.

• Dunant became the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Basic Rules

1. Attacks must be limited to combatants and military targets

1.1 Civilians may not be attacked

1.2 Civilian objects (houses, hospitals, schools, places of worship

1.3 Using civilians to shield military targets is prohibited

1.4 prohibited for combatants to pose as civilians

1.5 Starvation of civilians as a method of combat is prohibited

1.6 illegal to attack objects that are important to survival (farms, drinking water

1.7 illegal to attack dams, dykes, nuclear power plants

Weapons

2. Attacks or weapons which indiscriminately strike civilian and military objects and persons, and which cause excessive injury or suffering are illegal

2.1 chemical and bio weapons, blinding laser weapons, weapons that injure the body by fragments, poison, anti personnel land mines.

Victims of War

3 Civilians, wounded combatants, and prisoners should be spared, protected and treated humanely.

3.1 no one shall be subjected to physical or mental torture or cruel or degrading treatment

3.2 sexual violence illegal3.3 prisoners are entitled to respect and

must be treated humanely

• 3.6 taking hostages is illegal

• 3.7 Prohibited to kill or wound an enemy who has surrendered

3.10 Illegal to recruit children below the age of 15 for any type of military service.

3.11 everyone is entitled to a fair trial

4. Military and civilian medical personnel and facilities must be respected and protected

4.1 illegal to attack any person vehicle or building that wears the red cross red crescent symbol

4.2 No priority is given when treating wounded people except on medical grounds.