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Comments on the Geneva Protocols

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2010

George H. Aldrich
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Extract

My views concerning the negotiation of the 1977 Protocols were set forth some 13 years ago in my contribution to the book published in honor of Jean Pictet, and I do not want to repeat them here. But perhaps, from the perspective of the intervening years, there may be a few things I could usefully add.

Type
20th anniversary of the 1977 Additional Protocols
Information
International Review of the Red Cross (1961 - 1997) , Volume 37 , Special Issue 320: 20th anniversary of the 1977 Additional Protocols , October 1997 , pp. 508 - 510
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 1997

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References

1 Aldrich, George H., “Some Reflections on the Origins of the 1977 Geneva Protocols”, in Swinarski, C. (ed), Studies and essays on international humanitarian law and Red Cross principles in honour of Jean Pictet, ICRC/Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Geneva/The Hague, 1984, pp. 129–137.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., p. 131.

3 While strict censorship normally accompanies the outbreak of hostilities, there certainly can be exceptions, particularly in areas away from where military operations are being launched. Both Vietnam and the Gulf War of 1990–91 saw much greater press freedom — at least in places — than most earlier wars.

4 Clearly the rejection of Protocol I by the Reagan Administration was based primarily upon political, not military, considerations, but the rise to senior rank of those who served as junior officers in Vietnam and chafed at the political restrictions imposed upon them there has increased friction in the process of obtaining the support of the Defense Department for ratification of Protocol I. The loss of some of my most important delegation members—Professor, later Judge Richard R. Baxter and Waldemar Solf to untimely death, and Major Generals George Prugh USA and Walter Reed USAF to retirement—drastically thinned the ranks of those who would have effectively pressed for ratification of the Protocols.

5 See, for example, the ICTY's decision on jurisdiction in Prosecutor v. Tadic, Case IT-94-1-AR72 (October 2, 1995), in which the Tribunal held that serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in non-international armed conflicts are international crimes. On this question, see also my editorial comment in 90 American Journal of International Law, 01 1996, pp. 64 Google Scholar ss., and Theodor Meron's editorial comment in ibid., April 1996, pp. 238 ss.