The Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (), more commonly referred to as the Fourth Geneva Convention and abbreviated as GCIV, is one of the four

treaties A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between sovereign states and/or international organizations that is governed by international law. A treaty may also be known as an international agreement, protocol, covenant, convention ...

of the

Geneva Conventions upright=1.15, The original document in single pages, 1864 The Geneva Conventions are international humanitarian laws consisting of four treaties and three additional protocols that establish international legal standards for humanitarian t ...

. It was adopted in August 1949, and came into force in October 1950. While the first three conventions dealt with combatants, the Fourth Geneva Convention was the first to deal with humanitarian protections for civilians in a war zone. There are currently 196 countries party to the 1949

, including this and the other three treaties. Among its numerous provisions, the Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits the transfer of the population of an occupying power into the territory it occupies. The Fourth Geneva Convention only concerns

protected Protection is any measure taken to guard something against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although ...

civilians in

occupied territory Military occupation, also called belligerent occupation or simply occupation, is temporary hostile control exerted by a ruling power's military apparatus over a sovereign territory that is outside of the legal boundaries of that ruling powe ...

rather than the effects of hostilities, such as the

strategic bombing during World War II World War II (1939–1945) involved sustained strategic bombing of railways, harbours, cities, workers' and civilian housing, and industrial districts in enemy territory. Strategic bombing as a military strategy is distinct both from close ...

. The 1977 Additional Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions (AP-1) prohibits all intentional attacks on "the civilian population and civilian objects." It also prohibits and defines "

indiscriminate attack In international humanitarian law and international criminal law, an indiscriminate attack is a military attack that fails to distinguish between legitimate military targets and protected persons. Indiscriminate attacks strike both legitimate mi ...

s" as "incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated." This rule is referred to by scholars as the principle of proportionality. Until well after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

ended in 1945, the

norm of reciprocity The norm of reciprocity requires that people repay in kind what others have done for them. It can be understood as the expectation that people will respond to each other by returning benefits for benefits, and with either indifference or hostility ...

provided a justification for conduct in armed conflict. In 1993, the

United Nations Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...

adopted a report from the

Secretary-General Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, Power (social and political), power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the org ...

and a Commission of Experts which concluded that the Geneva Conventions had passed into the body of

customary international humanitarian law Customary international humanitarian law is a body of unwritten rules of public international law, which govern conduct during armed conflict. Customary international law Customary international law, like international treaty law, is recognized a ...

, thus making them binding on non-signatories to the Conventions whenever they engage in armed conflicts. This broader application underscores the importance of the Fourth Geneva Convention in ongoing conflicts where allegations of violations frequently surface, emphasising its role in international efforts to ensure the protection of civilians, as illustrated by the ongoing debates and legal interpretations in modern conflicts.

Part I. General provisions

This sets out the overall parameters for GCIV:

Article 2: Application of the Convention

Article 2 states that signatories are bound by the convention both in war,

armed conflict War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

s where war has not been declared, and in an occupation of another country's territory. The scope of Article 2 is broad: In the commentary to the article

Jean Pictet Jean Simon Pictet (2 September 1914, Geneva – 30 March 2002, Meyrin) was a Swiss citizen, jurist, legal practitioner working in international humanitarian law. First as a secretary-jurist, and then as a senior executive and Vice-President of t ...

writes:

Article 3: Conflicts not of an international character

Article 3 states that even where there is not a conflict of international character, the parties must as a minimum adhere to minimal protections described as:

non-combatant Non-combatant is a term of art in the law of war and international humanitarian law to refer to civilians who are not taking a direct part in hostilities. People such as combat medics and military chaplains, who are members of the belligerent arm ...

s, members of armed forces who have laid down their arms, and

combatants Combatant is the legal status of a person entitled to directly participate in hostilities during an armed conflict, and may be intentionally targeted by an adverse party for their participation in the armed conflict. Combatants are not afforded i ...

who are ''

hors de combat ''Hors de combat'' (; ) is a French term used in the laws of war to refer to persons who are incapable of performing their combat duties during war, thus generally not treated as active combatants but rather protected persons. Examples include ...

'' (out of the fight) due to

wound A wound is any disruption of or damage to living tissue, such as skin, mucous membranes, or organs. Wounds can either be the sudden result of direct trauma (mechanical, thermal, chemical), or can develop slowly over time due to underlying diseas ...

s, detention, or any other cause ''shall in all circumstances be treated humanely'', with the following prohibitions: *(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds,

mutilation Mutilation or maiming (from the ) is Bodily harm, severe damage to the body that has a subsequent harmful effect on an individual's quality of life. In the modern era, the term has an overwhelmingly negative connotation, referring to alteratio ...

, cruel treatment and

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...

; *(b) taking of

hostage A hostage is a person seized by an abductor in order to compel another party, one which places a high value on the liberty, well-being and safety of the person seized—such as a relative, employer, law enforcement, or government—to act, o ...

s; *(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment; *(d) the passing of

sentences The ''Sentences'' (. ) is a compendium of Christian theology written by Peter Lombard around 1150. It was the most important religious textbook of the Middle Ages. Background The sentence genre emerged from works like Prosper of Aquitaine's ...

and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the

judicial The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law ...

guarantee A guarantee is a form of transaction in which one person, to obtain some trust, confidence or credit for another, agrees to be answerable for them. It may also designate a treaty through which claims, rights or possessions are secured. It is to ...

s which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

Article 4: Definition of protected persons

Article 4 defines who is ''

protected person Protected persons is a legal term under international humanitarian law and refers to persons who are under specific protection of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, their 1977 Additional Protocols, and customary international humanitarian law during an ...

'': It explicitly excludes "Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention" and the citizens of a

neutral state A neutral country is a state that is neutral towards belligerents in a specific war or holds itself as permanently neutral in all future conflicts (including avoiding entering into military alliances such as NATO, CSTO or the SCO). As a type o ...

in the territory of a belligerent power or nationals of a

co-belligerent Co-belligerence is the waging of a war in cooperation against a common enemy with or without a military alliance. Generally, the term is used for cases where no formal treaty of alliance exists. Likewise, allies may not become co-belligerents in a ...

state (i.e., allied nation) if that state has normal

diplomatic relations Diplomacy is the communication by representatives of state, intergovernmental, or non-governmental institutions intended to influence events in the international system.Ronald Peter Barston, ''Modern Diplomacy'', Pearson Education, 2006, p. ...

"within the State in whose hands they are." Dr. Ola Engdahl wrote " e purpose of excluding hesenationals from the category of protected persons was that they could rely on diplomatic protection of the state of nationality. Persons are either protected persons under the convention or can benefit from the diplomatic protection of their state of nationality." A number of articles specify how ''protecting powers'', ''

ICRC The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a humanitarian organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is a three-time Nobel Prize laureate. The organization has played an instrumental role in the development of rules of war and ...

'' and ''other

humanitarian organization An aid agency, also known as development charity, is an organization dedicated to distributing aid. Many professional aid organisations exist, both within government, between governments as multilateral donors and as private voluntary organizatio ...

s'' may aid ''protected persons''. The definition of ''protected person'' in this article is arguably the most important article in this section because many of the articles in the rest of GCIV only apply to ''protected persons''.

Article 5: Derogations

Article 5 provides for the suspension of persons' rights under the convention for the duration of time that this is "prejudicial to the security of such State", although "such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention." The common interpretation of article 5 is that its scope is very limited. Derogation is limited to individuals "definitely suspected of" or "engaged in activities hostile to the security of the State." In paragraph two of the article, "spy or saboteur" is mentioned.

Part II. General Protection of Populations Against Certain Consequences of War

Article 13: Field of application of part II

The list of basis on which distinction might be drawn is not exhaustive.

Article 16: Wounded and Sick: General Protection

Part III. Status and Treatment of Protected Persons

Section I. Provisions common to the territories of the parties to the conflict and to occupied territories

Article 32: Prohibition of corporal punishment, torture, etc.

A protected person may not have anything done "of such a character as to cause physical suffering or extermination ... the physical suffering or extermination of protected persons in their hands. This prohibition applies to murder,

corporal punishment A corporal punishment or a physical punishment is a punishment which is intended to cause physical pain to a person. When it is inflicted on Minor (law), minors, especially in home and school settings, its methods may include spanking or Padd ...

s, mutilation and medical or scientific experiments not necessitated by the medical treatment. While popular debate remains on what constitutes a legal definition of torture, the ban on corporal punishment simplifies the matter; even the most mundane physical abuse is thereby forbidden by Article 32, as a precaution against alternate definitions of torture. The prohibition on scientific experiments was added, in part, in response to experiments by German and Japanese doctors during

of whom

Josef Mengele Josef Mengele (; 16 March 19117 February 1979) was a Nazi German (SS) officer and physician during World War II at the Russian front and then at Auschwitz during the Holocaust, often dubbed the "Angel of Death" (). He performed Nazi hum ...

was the most infamous.

Article 33: Individual responsibility, collective penalties, pillage and reprisals

Under the 1949 Geneva Conventions,

collective punishment Collective punishment is a punishment or sanction imposed on a group or whole community for acts allegedly perpetrated by a member or some members of that group or area, which could be an ethnic or political group, or just the family, friends a ...

is a

war crime A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostage ...

. By collective punishment, the drafters of the Geneva Conventions had in mind the reprisal killings of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and

. In the First World War, the Germans executed Belgian villagers in mass retribution for resistance activity during the

Rape of Belgium The Rape of Belgium was a series of systematic war crimes, especially mass murder and German occupation of Belgium during World War I#Deportation and forced labour, deportation, by German troops against Belgians, Belgian civilians during Germa ...

. In World War II, both German and Japanese forces carried out a form of collective punishment to suppress resistance. Entire villages or towns or districts were held responsible for any resistance activity that occurred at those places.Keylor, William R., ''The Twentieth-Century World and Beyond'', Oxford University Press, New York: 2011. The conventions, to counter this, reiterated the principle of individual responsibility. The

International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a humanitarian organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is a three-time Nobel Prize laureate. The organization has played an instrumental role in the development of rules of war and ...

(ICRC) Commentary to the conventions states that parties to a conflict often would resort to "intimidatory measures to terrorize the population" in hopes of preventing hostile acts, but such practices "strike at guilty and innocent alike. They are opposed to all principles based on humanity and justice".

Additional Protocol II Protocol II is a 1977 amendment protocol to the Geneva Conventions relating to the protection of victims of ''non-international'' armed conflicts. It defines certain international laws that strive to provide better protection for victims of ...

of 1977 is about the protection of victims of non-international armed conflicts explicitly forbidding collective punishment. But as fewer states have ratified this protocol than GCIV, GCIV Article 33 is the one more commonly quoted.

Section III. Occupied territories

Articles 47–78 impose substantial obligations on occupying powers. As well as numerous provisions for the general welfare of the inhabitants of an occupied territory, an occupier may not forcibly deport protected persons, or deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into occupied territory (Art.49).

Article 49: Deportations, transfers, evacuations

The reference in the last paragraph to "

deportation Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people by a state from its sovereign territory. The actual definition changes depending on the place and context, and it also changes over time. A person who has been deported or is under sen ...

", is commonly understood as the ''expulsion'' of foreign nationals, whereas the expulsion of nationals would be called ''extradition, banishment'' or ''exile''. If ethnic groups are affected by ''deportation'', it may also be referred to as

population transfer Population transfer or resettlement is a type of mass migration that is often imposed by a state policy or international authority. Such mass migrations are most frequently spurred on the basis of ethnicity or religion, but they also occur d ...

. ''Transfer'' in this case literally means to move or pass from one place to another. The

has expressed the opinion, "that international humanitarian law prohibits the establishment of settlements, as these are a form of population transfer into occupied territory".

Article 50: Children

Article 51: Recruitment of Protected persons

The Occupying Power may not compel protected persons to serve in its armed or auxiliary forces. No pressure or propaganda which aims at securing voluntary enlistment is permitted. The Occupying Power may not compel protected persons to work unless they are over eighteen years of age, and then only on work which is necessary either for the needs of the army of occupation, or for the public utility services, or for the feeding, sheltering, clothing, transportation or health of the population of the occupied country. Protected persons may not be compelled to undertake any work which would involve them in the obligation of taking part in military operations. The Occupying Power may not compel protected persons to employ forcible means to ensure the security of the installations where they are performing compulsory labour. The work shall be carried out only in the occupied territory where the persons whose services have been requisitioned are. Every such person shall, so far as possible, be kept in his usual place of employment. Workers shall be paid a fair wage and the work shall be proportionate to their physical and intellectual capacities. The legislation in force in the occupied country concerning working conditions, and safeguards as regards, in particular, such matters as wages, hours of work, equipment, preliminary training and compensation for occupational accidents and diseases, shall be applicable to the protected persons assigned to the work referred to in this Article. In no case shall requisition of labour lead to a mobilization of workers in an organization of a military or semi-military character.

Article 53: Prohibited destruction

In The Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949. Commentary,

writes:

Article 56: Hygiene and public health

Article 56 describes the medical obligations the occupying power has in the occupied territory:

Article 78: Security measures. Internment and assigned residence. Right of appeal

Article 78 deals with

internment Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without Criminal charge, charges or Indictment, intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects ...

. It allows the occupying power for "imperative reasons of security" to "subject them rotected personsto assigned residence or to internment". The article does not allow the occupying power to take collective measures: each case must be decided separately.

Part IV. Execution of the Convention

This part contains "the formal or diplomatic provisions which it is customary to place at the end of an international Convention to settle the procedure for bringing it into effect are grouped together under this heading" (1). They are similar in all four Geneva Conventions.Commentary: Part IV : Execution of the convention #Section II : Final provisions
Retrieved 28 October 2008

Annexes

The ICRC commentary on the Fourth Geneva convention states that when the establishment of hospital and safety zones in occupied territories were discussed reference was made to a draft agreement and it was agreed to append it as an annex I to the Fourth Geneva Convention.ICR
Commentary: Annex I : Draft agreement relating to hospital and safety zones and localities
Retrieved 28 October 2008 The ICRC states that "the Draft Agreement has only been put forward to States as a model, but the fact that it as carefully drafted at the Diplomatic Conference, which finally adopted it, gives it a very real value. It could usefully be taken as a working basis, therefore, whenever a hospital zone is to be established." The ICRC states that Annex II is a "draft which, according to Article 109 (paragraph 1) of the Convention, will be applied in the absence of special agreements between the Parties, deals with the conditions for the receipt and distribution of collective relief shipments. It is based on the traditions of the International Committee of the Red Cross which submitted it, and on the experience the Committee gained during the Second World War."ICR
Commentary: Annex II : Draft regulations concerning collective relief
Retrieved 28 October 2008 Annex III contains an example internment card, letter and correspondence card:ICRC
Commentary: Annex III Model internment cards, letters and correspondence cards
Retrieved 28 October 2008 # An example internment card with dimensions of 10 × 15 cm. # An example letter with dimensions of 29 × 15 cm. # An example correspondence card with dimensions of 10 × 15 cm.

Notes

References

External links