Cover for those who cannot fight: the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols

Background

The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols are the treaties that set limits on how a war may be fought. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which works to develop and promote this branch of law, places them at the core of international humanitarian law. They cover people who take no part in the fighting, such as civilians, medical staff and aid workers. They also cover those who can fight no longer, among them the wounded, the sick, the shipwrecked and prisoners of war. Additional Protocols were adopted later to widen that cover. The Red Cross has produced Commentaries on each Convention and keeps updating them, so that armies and courts read the rules the same way. The stated aim of the updated Commentaries is to show the law as it is understood today. Together the Conventions and the Protocols are what people mean when they say even war has rules.