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Renew the Ambition to Impose Rules on Warfare
By Cornelio Sommaruga
International Herald Tribune
August 12, 1999
Fifty years ago this Thursday, representatives of some 58 countries gathered in Geneva, with the ghastly memories of World War II still vivid, to place their
nations' names at the bottom of a new treaty. Like the world around, this treaty, composed of four different ''conventions,'' was born of the flames of war.
It reflected the growing realization that war was, unfortunately, not to be confined to the past but was lurking in the future, under many guises. There was
the mounting terror of a new weapon, the atom bomb, that was to transform forever the very notion of peace. There were a number of bushfires, which
would later become wars of national liberation.
In the minds of those who gathered in Geneva in the summer of 1949, there was an awareness that mankind was again slipping into something terrify-ing.
Thus the diplomatic conference was devoted to placing limits on war. The delegates, and the International Committee of the Red Cross as the initiator of
the new Geneva conventions, understood that the causes of war and the problems of peace are best dealt with on their own. For war to be as merciful as
possible - sparing noncombatants and, in particular, civilian populations - it is best if the law that governs the rules of war be distinct from all possible
political considerations. This principle - the separation between causes of war and rules of war - became increasingly validated.
In 1977, two additional protocols were added to the conventions to reaffirm the sanctity of civilian populations in both international and internal armed
conflict. The means at the disposal of the warrior are not to be unlimited. Indiscriminate destruction is not permissible. Targeting civilians is prohibited. The
environment must not suffer lasting damage. Of late, though, this fundamental principle has come under attack. Wars, or at least some of them, are now
said to be fought for ''humanitarian reasons,'' meaning that one side is humanitarian and the other diabolical. This caricature of war could lead to
discrimination against the victims, since there will be the ''good'' victims of the ''humanitarian'' side and the ''bad'' victims among those who oppose the
''humanitarian'' intervention.
In strange and unforeseen ways, the conventions are suffering from an overdose of popularity, since it is because the world at large is so disgusted by acts
of barbarity that governments and supranational bodies see it as their duty to intervene more and more to try to curb some of the more lurid atrocities that
emerge here and there.
The intention of the International Committee of the Red Cross is not to say that the international community should refrain from embarking on missions,
including military missions, to try to counter acts of terror. The intention is to say that such endeavors must not be wolves in sheep's clothing. War remains
war, and humanitarian operations must remain humanitarian missions. A victim of war is a victim of war.
The rules of engagement that determine the course of each activity must not become blurred, for if they do, distrust will naturally emerge against the
intentions of the humanitarian world, and that would be catastrophic. The 1949 Geneva Conventions do the job, as the saying goes. They protect the victims
of war - although, it is true, they have an image problem, being acknowledged by the media only when they have been violated. It is possible to document a
massacre, but rarely a massacre that did not take place. There is no doubt that the Geneva conventions are adapted to the future. There is room for
improvement, however, and that is our work for the years to come. On this 50th anniversary of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the essential message
should remain: Even wars have limits!
(Cornelio Sommaruga is President of the International Committee of the Red Cross) |
