Geneva Convention: Rules of Engagement Between 190 Countries
For much of mankind’s history, the ground rules of warfare have been hit or miss, if they existed at all in the first place. While some civilizations showed compassion for the injured, helpless or innocent civilians, others tortured or slaughtered anyone in sight, no questions asked.
When was the Geneva Convention?
In 1859, when Geneva businessman Henry Dunant witnessed the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino in Italy, the horrific suffering that he saw compelled him to coordinate the 12-nation signing of the First Geneva Convention of 1863. The agreement laid down the first humanitarian rules regarding the treatment of battle-wounded combatants and prisoners of war, while establishing the International Committee of the Red Cross.
While a second Geneva Convention between 35 countries developed further humanitarian rules of warfare in 1906, after the shocking death and suffering witnessed in the First World War, a third Geneva Convention in 1929 added further clarifying rules to the civilized treatment of prisoners of war.
Geneva Convention Rules
The new updates stated that all prisoners must be treated with compassion and humanely, while laying out rules for the daily lives of prisoners and the establishment of the International Red Cross as the main body responsible for collecting and transmitting data about prisoners of war and combatants wounded or killed.
Despite Germany’s signatory on the Convention of 1929, that didn’t stop them from carrying out horrific acts on and off the battlefield and within their military prison camps and civilian concentration camps during World War Two. Germany and Japan’s flagrant mistreatment of combatants and civilians during the war ushered in additional protective articles during the Geneva Convention of 1949.
Article 9 of the Convention specified the Red Cross has the right to assist the wounded and the sick and provide humanitarian aid. Article 12 stipulated that the wounded and the sick must not be murdered, tortured, exterminated or exposed to biological experiments. In 1977, Protocols I and II were added to the Conventions of 1949, which increased protections for civilians, military workers and journalists during international armed conflicts. It also banned the use of “weapons that cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering,” or cause “widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment.”
Today, 190 countries follow the edicts laid down by the Geneva Conventions, due to their unified belief that some battlefield behaviors are so heinous and damaging, they harm the entire international community. Despite these many years of mandates designed to dampen untoward human aggression, pockets of genocide, civil war and religious persecution continue to darken the real-time history of man.