In the years following World War II, new types of conflict emerged. Wars of liberation took place as colonized people fought for their independence and freedom. The Geneva Conventions needed updating.
After four years of negotiation under the sponsorship of the Red Cross, an international conference in June 1977 approved two changes, called protocols, to the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict
The First Additional Protocol includes a series of measures to limit the harm done to civilians during the course of fighting between states: for instance, it seeks to restrict attacks to definable military objectives, and says the incidental damage to civilians must not be excessive in relation to the military advantage expected.
The phrasing of these rules leaves a lot of room for interpretation; somebody whose house has been shelled is going to have a different definition of “excessive damage” to the person who fired the shell. But, war is such a chaotic enterprise that it’s impossible to be more definitive.
Israel’s Incursion into Gaza Strip
An example of the kind of things the First Additional Protocol is supposed to stop occurred in the Middle East in the winter of 2008-09.
On December 27, 2008 Israel began shelling and bombing what it believed to be Hamas positions within the Gaza Strip. This was followed up by a ground offensive. The reason given was to stop Hamas from firing rockets into Israel.
A month later, when Israel withdrew, more than 1,200 Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip were dead and countless buildings destroyed.
In a timeline of the conflict aljazeera.net reported that on January 14, 2009, “Venezuela and Bolivia sever diplomatic ties with Israel, calling the onslaught on Gaza a ‘holocaust.’ Bolivia pledges to get Israeli officials charged in the International Criminal Court with committing ‘genocide.’ ”
Civil Wars Covered by New Protocol
The Second Additional Protocol concerns armed conflict occurring within the territory of a member state. It seeks to extend to them many of the principles already established for inter-state wars: against attacks on civilian targets, attempts to terrorize a civilian population, collective punishments or attacks on medical personnel, and in favour of the humane treatment of captives.
But, breaches of these rules seem to be more common than observance of them. Globalsecurity.org reports on 44 current wars being fought around the world and says, “Most of these are civil or ‘intrastate’ wars, fuelled as much by racial, ethnic, or religious animosities as by ideological fervor. Most victims are civilians, a feature that distinguishes modern conflicts.”
Globalsecurity.org points out that during World War I civilians accounted for less that five percent of total casualties, whereas “today, 75 percent or more of those killed or wounded in wars are non-combatants.”
Need for more Reform of Geneva Conventions
Once again, the Geneva Conventions are showing their age; the world of the 21st century is very different from that of 1977. Wars between countries are rare; the U.S. war against terrorism is an entirely new type of hostility; and, several conflicts today are led by criminal gangs portraying themselves as patriotic rebels trying to liberate their fellow citizens.
 |
