CRYSTALLISING AN EMBLEM: ON THE ADOPTION OF THE THIRD ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS

Extract

In the early morning of Thursday 8 December 2005, a Diplomatic Conference of the States Parties to the Geneva Conventions, convened in Geneva, adopted the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, relating to the Adoption of an Additional Distinctive Emblem (hereinafter, Third Protocol). The Third Protocol creates an additional emblem alongside the existing emblems recognised by the Geneva Conventions. It represents a landmark solution of long-standing problems regarding the use of distinctive emblems for the protection of war victims and the universality of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (hereinafter, Movement). Yet, the failure to adopt the Third Protocol by consensus was a disappointment to many, even those familiar with the controversies of the question of the emblem.

Since the nineteenth century, the emblems recognised by the consecutive Geneva Conventions have served both as protective emblems for national military and civilian medical services in times of war and as distinctive signs for National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Almost since their adoption, however, the emblems have been a source of recurrent difficulties and the subject of almost continuous discussion. The two emblems that in effect have been in use over the past decades – the red cross and the red crescent – have increasingly been perceived not as neutral and impartial but as having religious, cultural or political connotations. This has negatively affected respect for the emblems and diminished the protection they offer to victims and to humanitarian and medical personnel. Solving this problem was one of the two main reasons for adopting an additional emblem.