'Humanitarian Law Is Violated Every Day Around The World'

(MENAFN- Swissinfo) From Ukraine to the Middle East, through Sudan and Ethiopia, international humanitarian law is under severe strain. The Geneva Conventions celebrate their 75th anniversary against a backdrop of multiple armed conflicts. As the guardian of these rules, the ICRC is sounding the alarm.

Warfare, humanitarian crises, climate change, health... Rachel covers geopolitical issues from international Geneva. As a former environmental journalist, she has developed a keen interest in raw materials and has reported on mining conflicts in the Arctic. She also coordinates the 'Genève Vision' editorial project, a joint venture between SWI Swissinfo, Géopolitis RTS and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

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“International humanitarian law is probably violated every day around the world,” declared Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), on the set of Géopolitis External link at RTS. Just 75 years after the adoption of the Geneva Conventions, which aim to protect victims of armed conflicts, the time is not for celebrations.

“The ICRC now records over 120 armed conflicts around the world, a stark increase from around 20 conflicts observed just 25 years ago,” said Spoljaric Egger. From Ukraine to Gaza, via Ethiopia and Sudan, wars are intensifying, leading to an escalation of violence not only for civilians, but also for humanitarian workers.

Late August, the UN announced that 280 aid workers had been killed in 2023. A sad record that could be broken again this year, according to the Aid Worker Security Database, which has recorded over 200 victims since the beginning of the yearExternal link – more than half of whom were killed within the Palestinian territories.

In light of this situation, are the Geneva Conventions still adequate to address today's tense geopolitical context?“They are not only adequate, they have never been more essential. We could not rebuild such treaties today in the current state of the world”, said the ICRC president, before urging States to prioritise respect for international humanitarian law.

A priority that has become ever more pressing as the nature of warfare is evolving rapidly. From robotic dogs to AI-powered drones, the world is witnessing an intense arms race driven by artificial intelligence advancements. Ukraine, in particular, is acting as a laboratory for these new technologies. This year, the Ukrainian army launched the world's first military branch dedicated to unmanned systems.

In Gaza, meanwhile, the Israeli army has reportedly used artificial intelligence on a large scale for the first time. External link According to an investigation by the Israeli media +972External link , a programme known as Lavender identified up to 37,000 targets as potential Hamas members during the initial phase of the conflict. According to anonymous testimonies from Israeli intelligence officers cited in the investigation, this software reportedly has a margin of error of 10%, and 15 to 20 collateral victims were deemed acceptable per target at the beginning of the conflict. The Israeli army denied that artificial intelligence was used to identify suspected terrorists, claiming that the programme is merely an auxiliary tool for officers link

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