Could America fight its enemies without breaking the law?
The speed and intensity of prospective conflicts could test the laws of war
GLOOM WILL accompany the 75th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions next month. Debates rage as to whether this batch of treaties, which govern how wars may be fought, and later protocols, which ban genocide, torture and more, remain fit for purpose. The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned of “increasing elasticity” in how countries apply the laws of war, which the conventions underpin.
This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “No more the laws of war?”
From the July 20th 2024 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionMore from International
Paris could change how cities host the Olympics for good
The games will test the success of new solutions to old bugbears
How China and Russia could hobble the internet
The undersea cables that connect the world are becoming military targets
Trump and other populists will haunt NATO’s 75th birthday party
Threats to Western alliances lie both within and without the club
The rise of the truly cruel summer
Deadly heat is increasingly the norm, not an exception to it
Brainy Indians are piling into Western universities
Will rich countries welcome them the way they did Chinese students?
The new front in China’s cyber campaign against America
Big powers are preparing for wartime sabotage