 Hello everybody. So we have a crisis out there or probably multiple crisis out there and some people like Blinkfeld Korea think it's sensible to think about some laws and everything that we consider to be given and being there and that probably are up used by some other people. So for example the international humanitarian law and that's the talk that we will have to see what it actually is and what actually it's saying so what are the rules. Thank you. Thank you very much. So I said before I'm Blinkfeld Korea and I'm going to talk about international humanitarian law. Before I start this talk small disclaimer first of all I'm not a lawyer so everything you hear is from more or less a layman that tries to make a little bit of sense to do given laws. Also this is not the ultimate international humanitarian law talk because there is so much laws and texts and treatises that I'm not I couldn't work through them all and make and talk in about an hour and does not make everybody's heads explode. So yeah also if someone sees that in the near future or so and has maybe is a lawyer concerning the international humanitarian law or someone from the international community of the Red Cross and wants to do a talk here that would be pretty nice and you can do better than me maybe. So yeah we start what is the international humanitarian law does the international humanitarian law is basically a set of treatises and laws that govern how conflict should be and or the rules that apply in conflicts it's not the rules that state what we have to do when we start a conflict or want to start a war that's another part of international law and basically the laws are here to protect on the one side some groups of people depending on what treaty or text we have the group of people varies and we see what those groups are. Also it protects buildings and cultural heritage and other buildings more of that later on and also it restricts the means of fighting what weapons can we use and what force can we use. You know oh and one thing I have to say is that not all laws are equal there are ones that are considered stronger and other actually war crimes if you break them and then there are laws that can to some extent be let's say stretched. I'm gonna look at the three big ones I think first of all are the Geneva conventions there are three of them then the hate conventions which is more or less some older laws that had implications during history what we can use as weapons and what means of force we can use and I'm gonna take a look at the protocols of Geneva convention and yeah so yeah so we oh and also the international humanitarian law for the most part is about conflicts between states or nations in the text they couldn't say for it's all legal ease so they could not say yeah we have states or nations these are always higher contracting parties so if I mentioned higher contracting parties please be aware I mean nations or states I just use the terms because I'm used to it by now so there are other I'm gonna take a look at these three four treatises there are others first of all there are the commentaries of the Geneva convention if you if you are a software guy and you ever implemented the language then there's the the text that says you how to implement it and then there's the implementation itself and the commentaries to that and the commentaries of the Geneva convention are that they told you how you should interpret it the Geneva convention in order to make sense what the actual words mean and these commentaries can be quite extensive they go make nearly word-for-word they to comment on everything if the text would say that the weather is nice they would comment in which circumstances and whatnot the next thing that there are other number tribunal because that was one of the first where they actually had to take these treatises and law and speak law so they learned as they go I think and from that there were other trials and tribunals and with every tribunal and trial we held yeah we learned a bit more and what makes sense and whatnot then there is the customer customary IHL which is they made a collection of laws that and rules that apply to local or customs that happen in wall that are not written down but for some reason people are following and it's quite extensive and yeah so I skipped it then there's the start the statues and amendments of the international criminal court because they have to speak law so they also have their own laws and treatises who they use and a collection of it and then there are other conference for certain other conventional weapons that's quite a nice title because it doesn't get any broader I think we should name that not maybe if we ever tired of the GPN we should colleague me convention on certain computer topics or something just in the vein of this and there will be others I suppose because as time went on laws change circumstances change and so we must take care of that so first of all where am I oh yeah my slides got mixed so let's take a look at the Geneva Conventions the Geneva Conventions are a set of three conventions and they also have if you read the conventions you have for starters you have some general parts then you have the more specific part where all texts is in that the conventions about and then you have the closing and the general provisions are for all three 3G is the same first of all they have this clause that says you have to pay respect to the convention because this laws should be something special and so yeah you have to show respect to the convention because then you have the application of the convention where we just basically define what's the use and where do we use it a conflicts between two high contracting parties then we have yeah this is a big one article 3 is mostly between conflicts between not internal conflicts because at some point they said well there's not really a distinction between external into an internal conflict but also the states are sovereign so we cannot dictate what they should do and that is the try to negate that a bit to say hey you can sign this and then maybe treat your citizens as not as bad as you maybe do then the field of application what's the treaty all about how in what field of theater does it apply application by neutral powers can other parties use the treaty as well special agreements yeah if you are two parties you can you are allowed to do treaties between you if you have a conflict no one stops you you cannot revoke the Geneva conventions when you signed it and ratified it yeah you have to follow them protecting powers defines just if you have to two parties in a conflict you want like a third party that takes a look at things and is a neutral party where both parties agree to if the party says you do something wrong then the party is neutral so you respect that and then legal the legal actions can go forth from that then they define the activities of the ICRC other the International Committee of the Red Cross what they do and what they should do like care for all that injured injured people and the citizens and that substitutes for protecting powers they defined that well sometimes if you have a protecting power and the protecting power turns out to be not protecting it all a little bit bogus there are rules in place where you can say give me another protecting power switch them around you know and conflation of procedure do I have something to that no I don't know so then there are the endings the ending is just bureaucracy maybe the ending of the Geneva conventions just say a the text are originally in English and France French so that are the languages that are the treaties are written in that that are the languages you should use because they are the most precise if you have a translation then it might be get a little bit rough around the edges there are translations and there are I think a few articles concerning translations as well also there are the signatures every party following the Geneva conventions has to sign them then they have to oh then they had to ready then they have to ratify them the ratification is stored in burn and then we have a clause coming into force that basically says hey as long as two parties are ratified you have six week and then the Geneva convention the specific Geneva convention is in order and accession is who can be a third a higher contracting party who can join or follow the Geneva convention basically said every yeah higher contracting parties nation-state can be can be joined the Geneva convention also they are in some cases are how to say that they sign it they ratified but they are not quite content with the what the convention says so they wrote their own comment and yeah that might be interesting later on so we are that's that with the first Geneva convention the Geneva convention for a little amulet amulet ration of the condition of the wounded and armies on the field that was the first one to be created by him or the first one who started this was Henry Duran who went to or who saw the aftermath of the battle of Solferino and what he saw was so horrific that he said no there must be there must be something we can do and out of that he or if he was done one of the creators of the international community of the Red Cross and the Geneva convention just because the battle was a horrific they are free and mostly the Geneva conventions are about protecting people and places weapon to tell other texts and treaty so the first Geneva convention the original one had just a few basic points first of all how you treat it or what do you do with captured and who can you capture and so if you if you are out of battle if you are wounded or you're a civilian then that's maybe not yet you should care be careful cared for now you know and the treatment you receive is impartial means that no matter on which side you're on you get treated because you're wounded and you need help also the civilians and the medical personnel you want no you don't tell them ever ever ever because they treat your soldiers if they are wounded and we have in the original text at least the Red Cross is a protective symbol means you paint it on a building where your wounded are treated and that's a no go you you don't attack that building because it wears this protective symbol there are other symbols this will come in reminded for later also the Red Cross is you should only use this as protected symbol the Red Cross is an trademark of the International Committee of the Red Cross so in in daily life you should not use it because copyright protection and also because it's a protective symbol and you just want to use it in that specific purpose because this is the meaning and should not be a daily use because it's something special it protects those who need it then they amended it latest late in later revisions some articles dealing about the sick and they have evacuation of the sick and wounded which evacuations you can do which you can do not then you have retained personal if your personal medical personnel get captured they usually have to be returned to the their country and their side of the conflict except veterinarians they're out of luck there is a mean sources of my talk there is an other talk linked on video from an US Army I don't know what his rank is who talks about this stuff for medic personnel it's quite interesting and it goes a little bit deeper because they also talk about if your medical personnel you not allowed to attack or wear weapons and what is if you get captured and you cannot go back to your to your site can you flee what do you do it's quite interesting but it would be too long to mention it all here so if you're interested look at the source I load up the slides later you know also one topic is recording forwarding information you have to establish means of get information and recordings of your captured of your wounded person back and forth the conflict so they can you know oh he's missing maybe we should do something about it and then prescriptions regarding that that should should not be cremated and they should be probably ID'd yeah and there's more but in I have to paint relatively broad strokes because the talk it's longer and longer and more complicated we have a few conventions to wait through at at the end of every convention I talk about there will be grave breaches grave breaches are the slightly beautiful term for the of the Geneva convention for war crimes and I think that's important enough that I quote the full thing here I don't should I read it grave breaches and to which the preceding article really it relates shall be those in involving any of the following acts if committed against persons or property protected by the convention willful killing torture or inhuman treatment including biological experience willful causing great suffering or serious injury to body and health and extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawful and wantonly if that happens that as far as I could could find out the procedure goes as follows if one side thinks that great reach happens they inform the protective powers and the protective power then land launch an investigation and if they come to the conclusion it has happened then they round up the suspects meaning the people who committed them and who command them and they can then bring them to trial in their own under their own laws or they can commit them to a court in of another high contracting party which might be the case of attrition and the Hague that's how what I read but I'm not quite sure if that's to hundred percent accurate so you take it with a grain of salt on the second Geneva convention is something like came next to the first is a little bit like the ready meal of Geneva conventions because you know just that water it's all about marine warfare and it's basically the same to some extent of the first one just for marine forces all parties must protect and care for wounded sick and water shipwrecked and yeah we care for the wounded shipwrecked and yeah it's the body of water so we need maybe need neutral vessels because we have not enough capacity or tonnage to get all you swim there in the water after our attack to safety so we can ask neutral vessels if they want to or if they pick up those shipwrecked and maybe it's a good thing if we don't detect the neutral vessels I mean come on and the religious and medical personnel as said with return as a medical person always has a protective status so we cannot yeah we cannot just attack them or take them captured but we can take captured the wounded and sick on the ship that's a little bit of a bad idea as we see in the next Geneva convention or so I think yeah also article 51 grave breaches of the second Geneva convention as far as I just flipped through both tabs of my browser and they seem identical with the first one so I will not read the whole thing again the third Geneva convention time marches on we we see that we have the medical personnel and we treated the wounded and sick and then suddenly we come to the conclusion oh we have maybe we have prisons of war how we treat them what are prisons of war who can be have the protective status of a prisoner of war armed forces and measures and volunteer corps including organized resistant movements what they do they need to get these protected status they need a person who's responsible the commander some sorts they must have as all military forces as a distinctive sign if you are in a conflict you must wear a distinctive sign otherwise you violated Geneva convention you must carry your arms openly and of course you must follow the laws of the Geneva convention and international custom humanitarian law because yeah prisons of war can also be civil personnel who have support roles in the army merchant marine crews of civil aircraft and ships and inhabitants of non-occupied territory who spontaneously take up arms because yeah they take our land we just not sit idle by yeah you're protected and oh yeah the POW are protected from the time captured till they are till the conflict over when you are in doubt if someone is a POV or not then he is a POV until the tribunal can settle the matter so protected also you are retained medical personnel and your chaplains take proceedings over all other POWs in treatment yeah so that's that next step the POWs are responsible responsibility of the state not the person who captures them they can be not transferred to a state that's outside of the convention it's not a party of the convention they can only transport to high contracting parties they must be treated humanely and they their medical need must be met if you remember the slides to three minutes ago about chips and that you can capture the wounded and sick on that chip why would you do that you have to care for them you must treat them humanely if they are already on a vessel that helps them let them um so what do you what says the Geneva Convention about captivity don't mind a bracket that slips you what information must you give some bad action movie might already mentioned that of maybe you know that I'm sure name first names rank date of birth and army regimental personnel serial number you can now use physical or mental torture not prohibit they have to allow external relations you have let them send and receive posts and their family can talk to them also there are you know there are also regulations what private property can appeal we keep appeal we must evacuate evacuated from the comb combat zone as soon as possible and then they regulate all matters of things that acute during internment like what what quality of quarters do we have food clothing they must provide hygiene and medical attention the medical personnel and chaplains how are they treated as I said they must be returned as soon as possible to their side of the party religious practice has to be allowed and intellectual and physical activities must be provided if you provide physical activities discipline mention ring with all the pride if you provide intellectual and physical activities they also regulate what kind of work do you can force or what what kind of work POW can do and can they be paid or what are their monetary rules in the POW camp also their relations of POU POWs with the exterior world I said post is allowed if the post gets censored they must be censored quickly and also you have to establish something like a comedy committee of pure the committee may be the wrong word but an interface between the POWs and the power that captures them so that disputes can be talked about like accommodations are wet and not hygienic enough and maybe please give us more food or everything that creates friction and has to be solved can be unsolved to the this committee the rest of the third Geneva convention talks about termination of captivity when other prisoners released EA when is the conflict over if he's too sick and must be transferred elsewhere etc there is the information and relief society for POWs that takes care of all a few external things like help in care packages and so on and the execution of the convention that's an leftover from my creating process of the slide the execution of the convention you remember the first series about the ending of all conventions that's the execution is part of that the third grave breaches is more or less the same as the first two except that they also mentioning that you cannot where is it serve in the forces of a hostile power will willfully depriving a prisoner of war of the rights of a fair and regular trial described in the conventions basically it's the stuff from the first one for POWs plus some extra rooms the fourth one just would step further now we have now we don't have POWs but we take a look at generally the civil population of a conflict party is about how what means do we have to protect the civilian population of a conflict we have hospitals which we learned have this protection sign if we are so inclined the high-contracting parties in the conflict can say yeah we both recognize certain neutralized neutralized zones where we don't attack general the wounded and sick are protected meaning you don't tell them you don't have the transports the first aid vans etc you see it should be possibly that you can evacuate the sick if they need to be evacuated as I said hospitals are protectors protected hospital staff has to wear ID cards and can be identified so that you don't tell them you have to let medical supplies through there are a few exceptions if you are suspicious that they don't arrive at where they are needed but in general you must let them through also there are they are protected the hospital staff is protected there are rules for land, sea and air transport you don't attack land and sea transport also air transports have to fly in a certain corridor meaning at a certain height at a certain route and are also of limits for attacks yeah I mentioned it foot-unclothing and medical supplies should be let through there matters regarding child welfare child welfare thank you very much if you have orphans or childs who don't know where the families are you have to care for them you must do at least attempt to try to find the family and yeah you have to let person let us through and family knew through so that people can inform themselves where their relatives are and how they are doing and dispersed families is the same as I think yeah next part is that's the need one prohibition of corporal punishment if if someone does something wrong you know say you have you have occupied an area you cannot just stentipede punish all people are there just because are there and it looks suspicious no just the person who really really did the thing you have a punishment or you yeah that that goes that no no no corporal punishment for short everyone is individually individual responsibility for her actions and only individuals can be punished and to a certain degree you cannot torture them for example and pillage and our reprisals are also be forbidden there is somewhat of an there are articles about transfers and evacuation you cannot just because you want just deport all of the inhabitants of an zone of an occupied zone and you cannot deport say parts of your populace into the occupied zone you know also unnecessary destruction of enemy property is also forbidden and you must take care of children yeah property destruction is forbidden and you must take care that the basic necessities of the of the daily life are met so you must provide something like you know a little bit of electricity and water and so on and so forth you can interment people but they have a right to a fair trial and the right to appear these are the great breaches of the fourth Geneva Convention time is a little bit short so I will skip them yeah I just leave it up for a moment maybe the mentions the regular mouse mentions the regular trial and willfully depriving a protective person of rights of fair and regulated trial taking hostages extensive destruction and appropriation of property maybe just all things I talked about earlier the Geneva Conventions as you heard so far all of protecting people now the fun part begins now we talk a little bit about weaponry and why we not use them the first treaty that has that as a topic was the hate convention in 1899 proposed for by Tsar Nikolaus the third the second sorry and influenced by the Libo code that's an code that or a law regarding weaponry and so forth that was signed during the American Civil War by Lincoln they have such topics like the settlement of international disputes then the laws and customs of war and land I mentioned certain things that are not not concerning weapons at all but they are in in the treaties though I mentioned them we also take a look at Marine for Offer because yeah 1899 flying was a little bit off by then except balloons you find a yeah they were afraid you drop something from a balloon but they barred it for five years you couldn't use bombs for five years by dropping them by balloon after that that's off you cannot use projectiles with a sole object of threat as physical as physics in poisonous gases there is later on there's an protocol to the convention that goes in a little bit deeper and we can not use soft bullets or bullet that expands meaning a dumb dumb weaponry yeah that was the first hook hate convention the second was initiated by feudal Roosevelt because the Russian and the Japanese were at war and that yeah so let us talk about a little bit further I cut the topics a little bit down because not all it was mostly topics from the first slide so they take took a look at conversion of merchant ships into warships laying of automatic submarine contact mines was a thing back then that they had to talk about bombardments and a lot of maritime stuff also they established the international price court and also balloons was still a thing those are just the basics the convention on certain conventional weapons is much deeper as mentioned earlier but I wouldn't want to bore you with that so if you want to look it up in the sources there are the international Red Cross has a database of all treaties and texts concerning the international humanitarian law where you can find all that thing also the commentaries have fun it's worth reading there is the Geneva protocol the so-called Geneva protocol which talks a little bit about not using poisonous gases and bacteriological warfare some person took a look in 2002 as I recall when you read the title it's all fine and you start to think for a moment and it has a little bit of a shortcoming they not prohibit these against not ratifying parties which bad thing not the nicest thing you can do it's not prohibit to use them as retaliation so as long as you don't fire first you are fine and research on those weapons also not prohibit and so you can say I'm just researching I'm just researching in stockpile and that's yeah it's a first good step but it's maybe not the not the end not you should work on that also who signed many nations signed all have some of them have has a reservation and the list is quite long meaning so yeah we signed but we are not respect all of it and that's also a bad thing in my book next is also that thing is called at least to the Wikipedia article the Geneva protocol they have free Geneva protocols and I really really can't tell you what's the difference between the Geneva protocol and the Geneva protocols so if someone finds that out tell me I'm really good to know the first but the first Geneva protocol is an extension to the Geneva conventions and it also it just extends on the Geneva conventions and adds additional rules some of them it has 102 articles I just skim through some here pro perfidities prohibited poor habited pilots who are jumped out of their craft because they in distress don't fire on them the compliance they clarify the identification of armed forces I just want to mention a motion shall not have the right to be in combatant or prison of war so they are not protected they outlaw and discriminate attacks on civilian population destruction of food and water as mentioned as the from the other protocol you have to care for the populace and must provide with basic needs so this is more or less a recap you cannot attack infrastructure dams power plants water treatment facilities no go yeah women children medical personnel are special protectors also journalists hmm just saying you cannot conscribe children under age of 15 except if they do it voluntarily you know also they again clarify on the stages of guerrilla forces they can be protected under the Geneva convention same points as before if they have a commander where their identification then they are fine also it's a crime to use the protective emblems of the deceiving you cannot hide yourself behind and protective emblem and then attack no protect this is a protective emblem it's for protective purposes only you don't misuse them the second protocol is I mentioned article 3 of the Geneva convention before article 3 is the article you have at the beginning that gives some people in internal conflicts of nations some certain rights basically the protocol Geneva protocol 2 is the same thing as the protection of civilians where am I just a moment so it's just basically the same as the Geneva protocol for civilians in international conflicts just for internal conflicts might be an interesting talk just about that protocol and see what actually is used in the world out there the third Geneva protocol concerns the protective sign you have a few organizations that are protected but regarding to culture and customs they all have different emblems and some of them wanted protection but they are were hesitant to allow the symbol of the organization as protective sign for example Megan David Adam used the red star of David and for some reason the International Red Cross said no just we cannot allow it we don't want to use that as a protective sign so they came up with the red crystal the crystal is see here is a neutral sign and so you can use this for your organization I think they allow that you have your own emblem in the middle and yeah so the developer development there so if you see this sign it's the same as the Red Cross when it comes to protection don't shoot at it don't shoot at buildings that carry that sign that's important last one there is the hate convention for the protection of cultural property and I took that into the slides because it's a little bit underrepresented there are cultural say statues and other museums that normally are or were not protected if you see one of those not all three then you cannot shoot at them because they are cultural important for all of us if you see three of them they have some special statuses and the government on which land this thing stands has to take certain message to make sure that they are a little bit better protected also didn't shoot on them I just want to bring it up because we always talk about civilians and POWs but also we have a culture and maybe we should protect them as well so that was it for the talk I hope I bought you not to death and it was I hope it was somewhat coherent what I talked about thank you for listening if there are any questions please yes you talked about the Red Cross and the other protective symbol is there any pre-established process to validate if someone is using them in good faith what was I didn't understand the last bit of the sentence sorry someone could just put up the Red Cross on military yeah I'm that that I mentioned this is a lot let me show it's a war crime to use one of the protective emblems to deceive the opposing forces that yeah that is that is what I mentioned if that happens the one contracting high contracting party go damn it must go to the protective power and say hey we think there has happened something let's take a look and then the legal process starts as far as I know more questions why would you need a special protocol for inner conflicts I mean because yeah because they in the beginning they only had for some reasons they didn't care about inner conflicts because the inner conflicts a country is sovereign so you cannot take an international organization or an outside party and dictate the the dictate laws that the country should follow that's their stuff they are they are the country yeah between two country it's possible countries is possible because they can get they can get talks going and yeah you know you give me that I give you that but internally they can't but they they they thought that they from the eyes of the affected it's the same so they they made the article three and the protocol number well what was it to to reconcile that I hope I answer your questions somewhat but is it is it different from the does it have different rules no but it's a it's a it's a different namespace I would think if that makes sense or a little bit legalese namespace you know questions who is responsible for enforcement of those rules the protective powers as far as I read up I have the same question but I couldn't find out the Geneva Convention always talks about in terms of protective powers everything that happens happens through the protective power the protective power is is there for the special purpose to take a look to to play the the referee in this conflict if someone knows more please make a talk I'm going to find out as well I didn't understand you sorry there's the mic usually you call the United Nations for support and the security consul for a referendum and they they concern concern to engage because there are rules of engagement for intervene or not intervene it's a little bit complex situation but in the end it boils down that they play the part of the protective power if I'm right yeah okay thank you no questions I don't think so so thank you again for this talk I hope everybody learns something I doubt that a lot of people actually just so that people see these are the sources on the if you have the PDF these are the links to databases and the thing at the bottom is the video from the US military talk about the retained personal and what to do if you ever in this situation yeah yeah thank you clickfield courier