The Geneva Convention

The Geneva Conventions are a series of four international treaties (1949) and their three additional protocols that form the core of international humanitarian law. They establish legal standards for humanitarian treatment of non-combatants in war and protect people who are not or are no longer actively taking part in hostilities. This category includes not only civilians and civilian populations but also former combatants, such as prisoners of war and fighters rendered hors de combat due to injury, illness, shipwreck or those who have surrendered. The four 1949 Geneva Conventions, adopted in response to the inhumanities of World War II, updated and added to previous Geneva Conventions (1864, 1906, 1929). The 1949 Geneva Conventions address the treatment of sick and wounded soldiers in the field ("Geneva Convention I"), wounded, sick and shipwrecked soldiers at sea ("Geneva Convention II"), prisoners of war ("Geneva Convention III"), and civilians in time of war ("Geneva Convention IV"). In 1977, these rules were updated by two Additional Protocols, the first concerning international armed conflicts ("Additional Protocol I") and the second, non-international armed conflicts ("Additional Protocol II"). Aside from the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions are among the most widely ratified international agreements. The four 1949 Geneva Conventions were ratified, in their entirety or with reservations, by 196 countries. Much of the international humanitarian law contained in the Geneva Conventions has become customary international law, and therefore would apply to all states and non-state armed groups, even those that are not a party to the Geneva Conventions. The legal obligations created under the Geneva Conventions are somewhat different from other international treaties in that a breach of the Geneva Conventions by one party does not furnish a directly affected party with the option to cease complying with its treaty obligations. The Geneva Conventions define the basic rights and protections afforded to those non-combatants who fulfill the criteria of being protected persons. The Geneva Conventions define the rights of civilians, prisoners of war, and military personnel; establish protections for the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked; and provide humanitarian protections for civilians in and around war zones. The use of conventional weapons in wartime is addressed by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, while the use of biological and chemical weapons in international armed conflicts is addressed by the 1925 Geneva Protocol. Violations of these earlier conventions constituted some of the grounds for the judgments of the Nuremberg, Tokyo, and other war crimes tribunals. Much of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, "have come to be recognized as customary law; hence they apply regardless of whether parties to the conflicts have ratified" the conventions.