Geneva Conventions

The four Geneva Conventions of 1949, the two Additional Protocols of 1977 and the Additional Protocol of 2005 form the core of international humanitarian law. Today, all the states in the world are bound by the four Conventions. Switzerland, as depositary state and as a Contracting State of the Geneva Conventions, has particular legal obligations.
The Geneva Conventions protect in particular persons who are not or no longer participating in hostilities: civilians and persons taken captive in military conflict. Persons under the authority of an adverse party to a conflict are entitled to respect for their life and for their physical and mental integrity.

• Under the First and Second Geneva Conventions of 1949 the Contracting States undertake to protect the wounded, sick and shipwrecked members of armed forces and medical personnel, ambulances and hospitals. They must be collected and cared for by the party to the conflict which has them in its power.
• The Third Geneva Convention contains detailed rules on the treatment of prisoners of war.
• The Fourth Geneva Convention protects civilian persons in the power of an adverse party or in an occupied territory against acts of violence or reprisal.
• The First Additional Protocol of 1977 supplemented the rules of the Fourth Geneva Convention on international armed conflicts. In addition, it contains rules governing the conduct of hostilities, such as the prohibition on attacks on civilian persons and civilian objects and limitations on the permissible means and methods governing the conduct of hostilities.
• The Second Additional Protocol of 1977 supplements the sole article of the Geneva Conventions also applicable to non-international hostilities (Article 3, which is common to the four Geneva Conventions). In local hostilities, too, a distinction must be made between military targets and protected civilian persons and objects.
• In December 2005, a Diplomatic Conference convened by Switzerland adopted a Third Additional Protocol. It adopted the red crystal as an additional emblem of protection. Since 14 January 2007, this emblem can be used alongside the Red Cross and the Red Crescent already recognized by the Geneva Conventions to identify persons and objects that enjoy special protection (the red lion and sun emblem is no longer used).

Today, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the two Additional Protocols of 1977 are by and large regarded as customary international law binding on all states and all parties to conflicts.