Imogen Foulkes: The Geneva Conventions at 60
[Imogen Foulkes is a BBC correspondent.
The three existing Geneva Conventions, which relate to the immunity of medical personnel on the battlefield and the treatment of prisoners of war, were extensively revised in 1949.
The fourth Geneva Convention, which stipulates that warring parties have an obligation to protect civilians, was added.
The fourth convention in particular was born out of the horrors of the World War II - not just the appalling atrocity of the concentration camps, but the deliberate starvation of the city of Leningrad, and the indiscriminate bombing of Dresden and Coventry.
The conventions received widespread international support from the start, and today all 194 states have ratified them.
Unfortunately, signatures on paper have not led to respect for the conventions, and research conducted by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) - which is the guardian of the conventions - shows that civilians suffer most in armed conflict.
Little compliance
In World War I, the ratio of soldiers to civilians killed was 10 to one.
In World War II it became 50-50, and today the figures are almost reversed - up to 10 civilians killed for every one soldier.
Last year's brief war between Georgia and Russia is a case in point.
In just a few days, several hundred civilians are believed to have lost their lives and tens of thousands were driven from their homes.
Along both sides of the closed "administrative boundary line" between Georgia and the breakaway republic of South Ossetia, dozens of villages are abandoned, the houses burned or bombed.
Mary Gelashvili, an elderly woman from the village of Tserenisi, has lost not just her house, which is destroyed, but her livelihood too.
Her fields are along the boundary line, and she can no longer get to them.
"No one should have the right to destroy my home," she says.
Under international law she is absolutely right. Indiscriminate damage to civilian life and property is forbidden.
"It's true the Geneva Conventions didn't help these people very much," admits Florence Gillette, head of the ICRC office in the Georgian town of Gori.
"The conventions actually state that all precautions should be taken to spare civilian lives and property, and not just lives and property but all infrastructure essential to survival.
"That's part of the fourth Geneva Convention that all the parties to this conflict, the Russians and the Georgians, signed and ratified a long time ago."..
Read entire article at BBC
The three existing Geneva Conventions, which relate to the immunity of medical personnel on the battlefield and the treatment of prisoners of war, were extensively revised in 1949.
The fourth Geneva Convention, which stipulates that warring parties have an obligation to protect civilians, was added.
The fourth convention in particular was born out of the horrors of the World War II - not just the appalling atrocity of the concentration camps, but the deliberate starvation of the city of Leningrad, and the indiscriminate bombing of Dresden and Coventry.
The conventions received widespread international support from the start, and today all 194 states have ratified them.
Unfortunately, signatures on paper have not led to respect for the conventions, and research conducted by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) - which is the guardian of the conventions - shows that civilians suffer most in armed conflict.
Little compliance
In World War I, the ratio of soldiers to civilians killed was 10 to one.
In World War II it became 50-50, and today the figures are almost reversed - up to 10 civilians killed for every one soldier.
Last year's brief war between Georgia and Russia is a case in point.
In just a few days, several hundred civilians are believed to have lost their lives and tens of thousands were driven from their homes.
Along both sides of the closed "administrative boundary line" between Georgia and the breakaway republic of South Ossetia, dozens of villages are abandoned, the houses burned or bombed.
Mary Gelashvili, an elderly woman from the village of Tserenisi, has lost not just her house, which is destroyed, but her livelihood too.
Her fields are along the boundary line, and she can no longer get to them.
"No one should have the right to destroy my home," she says.
Under international law she is absolutely right. Indiscriminate damage to civilian life and property is forbidden.
"It's true the Geneva Conventions didn't help these people very much," admits Florence Gillette, head of the ICRC office in the Georgian town of Gori.
"The conventions actually state that all precautions should be taken to spare civilian lives and property, and not just lives and property but all infrastructure essential to survival.
"That's part of the fourth Geneva Convention that all the parties to this conflict, the Russians and the Georgians, signed and ratified a long time ago."..