Fourth Geneva Convention
The
Fourth Geneva Convention (or
GCIV) relates to the protection of
civilians during times of
war "in the hands" of an enemy and under any occupation by a foreign power. This should not be confused with the better known
Third Geneva Convention, which deals with the treatment of
prisoners of war. The convention was published on
August 12, 1949, at the end of a conference held in
Geneva from
April 21 to
August 12,
1949. The convention entered into force on
October 21,
1950.
This sets out the overall parameters for GCIV:
* Article 2 indicates that signatories are bound by the convention both in war and peace time.
* Article 3 describes minimal protections which must be adhered to by all individuals within a signatory's territory (regardless of citizenship or lack thereof): Noncombatants, combatants who have laid down their arms, and combatants who are
hors de combat (out of the fight) due to wounds, detention, or any other cause
shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, including prohibition of
outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment. The passing of sentences must also be
pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.* Article 4 defines who is a
Protected person Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals. But it
explicitly excludes Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention and the citizens of a neutral state or an allied state.
* A number of articles specify how
Protecting Powers,
ICRC and
other humanitarian organizations may aid
Protected persons.
Protected person is the most important definition in this section because many of the articles in the rest of GCIV only apply to
Protected persons.
Article 5 is currently one of the most controversial articles of GCIV, because it forms, (along with Article 5 of the
GCIII and parts of GCIV Article 4,) the Administration of the
USA's interpretation of
unlawful combatants.
Article 13. The provisions of Part II cover the whole of the populations of the countries in conflict, without any adverse distinction based, in particular, on race, nationality, religion or political opinion, and are intended to alleviate the sufferings caused by war. Section I. Provisions common to the territories of the parties to the conflict and to occupied territories
Article 32. A protected person/s shall not have anything done to them
of such a character as to cause physical suffering or extermination ... the physical suffering or extermination of protected persons in their hands. This prohibition applies not only to murder, torture, corporal punishments, mutilation and medical or scientific experiments not necessitated by the medical treatment.
While popular debate remains on what constitutes a legal definition of torture (see discussion on the
Torture page), the ban on
corporal punishment simplifies the matter; even the most mundane physical abuse is thereby forbidden by Article 32, as a precaution against alternate definitions of
torture. (See
Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse.)
The prohibition on scientific experiments was added, in part, in response to experiments by German and Japanese doctors during World War II, of whom
Josef Mengele was the most infamous.
Article 33. No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.Pillage is prohibited.Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.Under the
1949 Geneva Conventions
collective punishments are a war crime. Article 33 states:
"No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed," and
"collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited."
By collective punishment, the drafters of the Geneva Conventions had in mind the reprisal killings of
World Wars I and
II. In the First World War,
Germans executed
Belgian villagers in mass retribution for resistance activity. In World War II,
Nazis carried out a form of collective punishment to suppress resistance. Entire villages or towns or districts were held responsible for any resistance activity that took place there. The conventions, to counter this, reiterated the principle of individual responsibility. The
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Commentary to the conventions states that parties to a conflict often would resort to "intimidatory measures to terrorize the population" in hopes of preventing hostile acts, but such practices "strike at guilty and innocent alike. They are opposed to all principles based on humanity and justice."
Additional Protocol II of 1977 explicitly forbids collective punishment. But as fewer states have ratified this protocol than GCIV, GCIV Article 33. is the one more commonly quoted.*
First Geneva Convention of
1864 on the treatment of
battlefield casualties
*
Second Geneva Convention of
1906 extending the first convention to war at sea
*
Third Geneva Convention of
1929 on the treatment of
prisoners of war* Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of
12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (
Protocol I). Adopted on
June 8,
1977 by the
Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law applicable in Armed Conflicts. It has been rejected by several nations, including the
United States,
Afghanistan and
Iraq.
*
Reprisal*
Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (available at
Wikisource).
*
1949 Conventions, 1977 Protocols, and 2005 Protocol - Full Text
