EDITORIAL - International Humanitarian Law

The four Geneva conventions for the protection of victims of war were signed more than half a century ago. Yet in many conflict areas around the world, adherence to those conventions has remained in the realm of a best-efforts pledge. Non-combatants are still used as pawns in armed conflict, children are still conscripted into guerrilla armies, and there are no limits to cruelty in the treatment of prisoners of war.

Since the conventions were signed on Aug. 12, 1949, banned or restricted weapons such as landmines, incendiary and biological weapons continued to be used in war. International Humanitarian Law calls for protection for non-combatants including religious workers and journalists. Yet even in the Philippines, religious workers are among the favorite targets of Islamist guerrillas. Abu Sayyaf terrorists pulled out all the toenails of a priest in Mindanao, then forced him to walk before decapitating him. And around the world combatants often have little compunction in killing journalists. Even health workers and Red Cross volunteers come under attack.

This is a good time to be reminded of the International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva conventions. As the free world fights a stateless, deadly enemy, conventions on human rights are ending up in the wastebaskets of many governments. Because of the nature of the terror threat, a new classification has been created for thousands of prisoners, who are detained in areas where international conventions are not applied.

In this war thousands of civilians have been killed — either deliberately or caught in the crossfire. Children are used as armed combatants or even as suicide bombers. In Iraq militants have decapitated, mutilated and burned civilians, then displayed the remains in public. Cases of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq were just the ones that were exposed to the world.

One tiny misstep in this war can be lethal, and governments dare not take any chances. The enemies of the free world are not bound by conventions on human rights. But if the free world fights this war with the same lack of rules, it could make a mockery of the very freedoms that governments are trying to protect.