Dr. Satchit Balsari is head of Global Emergency Medicine at the New York Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. He has acted as a consultant to the American Red Cross and UNICEF, and has founded two nonprofit organizations in Mumbai, India, and is a fellow of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He graduated from the Grant Medical College of the University of Mumbai and has obtained an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. Humanitarian relief and aid is based on a set of laws and rules that every humanitarian should know well. These laws began in 1864 with the first Geneva Conventions which protected the sick and wounded soldiers. By the end of World War II the international community realized there was a need for even greater protections of not only soldiers, but also civilians affected by conflict. This led to the founding of the United Nations and ratification of the Geneva Conventions as a standard for international humanitarian law. In this talk, Dr. Balsari will outline the foundations of these laws. And afterwards, he interviews Dr. Skip Burkle to learn about Dr. Burkle's years of experience with international humanitarian law and how he has seen these laws used to provide aid. He also provokes some insight into the questions such as, how does the UN enforce these laws? Especially in the midst of a conflict, or if perpetrators are groups such as ISIS rather than an internationally recognized nation. We learn that while these laws are an essential part of humanitarian relief, their implementation and enforcement becomes increasingly complicated in the modern world. >> Hi. Today we are going to learn about international humanitarian law, and familiarize ourselves with terms like the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Convention, terms that you've heard before. I'm Satchit Balsari from Weill Cornell Medical College. And this is Professor Skip Burkle, whom you've met in this series from the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. As we begin to explore international humanitarian law or Geneva Conventions, I think it is important to first recognize where they started, where they came from, and why we need to know this material. When we look around the world today and we see people suffering from calamity and conflict, we also see groups of humanitarian aid workers helping them all around the world. Whether people are suffering from hurricanes or disasters, or, or complex humanitarian emergencies, we always see the banners of all these organizations ranging from UN agencies like UNICEF and UNHCR as well as aid organizations like MSF the International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, always at the front lines. Most of us think that the impetus behind this aid is, is merely altruistic. It certainly is altruistic. But we provide aid to these people, not because it is the good thing to do, but it is because it is their right to be protected. We as an international community have agreed that people suffering from disasters, whether natural or man-made, have a right to life with dignity and have a right to be protected. This right that we now take for granted in 2014 wasn't always so. And what we hope to cover in the next few minutes, very quickly, is this journey that the world has undertaken collectively, especially over the last 150 years, if not for centuries before, where we have together agreed that these suffering people need to live a right, or have a right to life with dignity, and have the right to be protected. I mentioned international humanitarian law. International humanitarian law is a set of rules that seeks to protect people affected by war, either military personnel not engaged in conflict anymore, or civilians affected by war. It can largely be thought of in two groups, the Law of Geneva and the Law of Hague. The Law of Geneva is designed to protect people affected by the war, so either the soldiers who are not fighting again or civilians. The Law of The Hague is essentially aimed at belligerents fighting the war, and it defines the terms within which war can be fought. The Law of the Hague is what would talk about, what weapons to use, what weapons not to use, what's acceptable and not acceptable as a practice of war. The Law of Geneva is to do with humanitarian aid, which is what we're going to talk about today. In 1864, few years after he Battle of Solferino, Henry Dunant and four of his colleagues spearheaded a movement which is now known as the International Committee of the Red Cross. That is the guardian of the Geneva Conventions, and that first ratified what was, what is now known as the first Geneva Convention. It was signed by 16 countries, and it was revolutionary at that point. Because there were always codes of conduct for war, dating back hundreds of years in religious texts and sacred texts and historical texts, but most of these applied just very locally. This was the first time that several nation states came together and agreed upon a general set of principles for war. And essentially what the first Geneva Convention dealt with was protecting soldiers that were left behind on the battlefield. The second Geneva Convention came about in the early 20th century, when they realized that the first Geneva Convention was largely limited to armed soldiers on, on the battlefield, and not to armed personnel on the seas. After the large war between the empires of Japan and Russia in 1906, an even larger number of nation states then signed the second Geneva Convention which dealt with protecting armed personnel as affected by war at sea. Essentially what these Geneva Conventions said is that, if you were injured in war and left on the battlefield, you had a right to be protected irrespective of who found you. Even if you were found by the enemy, you had a right, as long as you'd put down your arms, to be protected, to be given healthcare, and to be treated with dignity, that you cannot be arbitrarily killed or tortured. Another decade passes, the First World War comes and goes, and we realize that the two Geneva Conventions were insufficient to protect prisoners of war. The third Geneva Convention addressed prisoners of war. After the Second World War, we learned that civilians were not covered by the preceding Geneva Conventions, and so the fourth Geneva Convention was adopted, and it extended to civilians. And this is very important and relevant, especially over the next 50 to 60 years in terms of, of how the nature of war has changed. Wars are not just fought between nations anymore. There is strife amongst nations, amongst populations of countries, and though civilians are, are affected by these wars, they are not necessarily international wars. To address this new changing dynamic of wars, additional protocols were incorporated that together, after 1977, form what is now known as the Geneva Conventions. So it's essentially the first four conventions, two additional protocols adopted after that, that form the bulk of international humanitarian law as we know it today. This body of law that we now have called the Geneva Conventions is extraordinarily im, important and empowering to the humanitarian sector. They define who humanitarian actors are, all these NGOs that we see on the field, their role, their obligations as long as they meet the humanitarian imperative, are covered by the Geneva Conventions. What was interesting in those times, in the late 1940s, after the World War, when the Geneva Conventions were adopted, was what was happening to the international community as a whole. The birth of the United Nations and the adoption of probably what has been one the most profound collective document ever written by humanity, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was for the first time that the world, together, agreed that all human beings were equal and born free. What was interesting about the late 1940s, in the aftermath of the Second World War, was the birth of some very powerful international organizations, the United Nations in particular. And especially the formulation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, one of the most profound documents written collectively by humanity. Article One of the declaration says, all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. What we take for granted in 2014 needed to be stated and debated by multiple nations around the world. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is largely operationalized by two groups, two covenants. The first, the covenant on civil and political rights, and the second on economic social and cultural rights. Civilian political, political rights are considered completely inalienable and non-negotiable. These are rights that everyone, every nation state subscribes to immediately. While the socioeconomic and cultural rights, while they're not non-negotiable, are essentially promised in a phased manner as countries are able to provide more services to their people. Well we have oversimplified several decades of international law writing in the last five minutes. I'd like to now turn to Professor Burkle to ask him a few questions about how best we can understand what all these laws mean. Professor Burkle. So we've learned about, you know we've discussed Geneva Conventions, we've talked about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Just how do we end up operationalizing all these laws? Who does the Geneva Convention cover? Who is bound by them? Who is signing these conventions? >> That's the $64,000 question, isn't it, Satchit? Yes, of course, all the countries right now are signatories to the Geneva Convention historically. That doesn't mean that the government in power truly understands the ramifications of being a signatory. Historically we do have to go back on how important being in signatory is. So that in World War II, the Allied troops, came from countries that were signatories to the Geneva Convention, but Russia did not sign the Geneva Convention. So those prisoners of war held by the Germans, the mortality rate among the Russian prisoners of war was over 70%, I think closer to 79%. But the mortality rate was about 17% amongst, among the Allied. And of course, on the other side of the world, the, with the the war in, in Japan, they were not signatories to the Geneva Conventions, and certainly have a hist, had a history of, of, of treating prisoners terribly. But the fact that they were not signatories to the Geneva Conventions was their primary defense during the legal cases against those that, that perpetrated the torture. That they didn't know better, okay? So the ramifications are tremendous, but, so it's mo, should be more powerful today that everybody's a signatory. But that doesn't mean it's going to be enforced or the enforcement mechanisms are going to be in place, at least during the conflict. >> I'm going to request you to elaborate on that portion right there. And I think I have a two-part question. Since you talked about not being a signatory, can you allude a little bit to what customary law means then- >> Yes. >> In this context? >> Yes. Customary law essentially is, is tied to Article 3, which is the common article under the Geneva Conventions, which means that, really, every country is obliged to, in certain, in very broad but very specific areas to, that, that are, that entitle everybody to those rights, even though you're not a signatory. So. >> So even if you're a new country- >> Yes. >> South Sudan is just born. Is it still obliged to these? >> Absolutely. They are immediately covered under Article 3, the common Article 3. >> And, and what about ISIS? This Islamic Republic of Iraq and, and Syria that claims that it is now a separate entity. >> Of course-. >> Are they bound? >> Of course that's a question on the tip of our tongue right now. And, and it is interesting because Al Qaeda has voiced some displeasure with the activities of, of ISIS in the Levant, okay? So does it mean then that Al Qaeda and its affiliates have some sense of what's morally right and what's morally wrong in, in, in war or treating civilians? We don't know. We don't know enough about them. But what's interesting, and, and, and you said it right from the beginning Saj, and that was you gave how the Geneva Conventions one through four has changed as we knew more about conflict and how conflicts changed. So right now, we are looking at how does the ICRC and the Geneva Conventions adapt to these new conflicts, the unconventional conflicts. And they are working on it, including what would be the responsibilities of these non-state actors? Because the Geneva Conventions have to do with state actors, not the countries. >> Right. >> And so, we have non-state actors, we have separate militaries that are not part of the state. >> Right. >> Okay? So, the ICRC is indeed working on those. What would be the common rules there? And I'm sure the Article 3 would, would come under that too. But what obligations they would have in order to have a dialogue with them to ensure that they start performing better in terms of, of protection for the people around them when they have their, their war or their conflict. But it's a big issue, but it is, it is, it is being dialogued as we talk. >> And even if we can convince them that, that they need to follow the Geneva Conventions, do the Conventions have any teeth? How do we enforce that? What do we do about violations of the, of the Geneva Convention? Many people, many humanitarian actors have said that Geneva Conventions were violated during the Iraq War. What is a recourse there? What can people do? >> It's a step-by-step fashion. Part of it is done by the ICRC itself, which as soon as this happens, they separately go to the, to the governments. One, one the, the, the hostile element and, and tells them what the violations are, and they give them specific times and measures to correct that. They also communicate to the countries that are being affected by those violations. So they, they're sort of an intermediary between and, and, and keeping the dialogue going. So if they don't get any enforcement with that it's hard, okay? The only recourse then is to put it into the international body. So that's where these things get to, both with the Hague Law and the Geneva Conventions, into the, into the Security Council of the United Nations. And the two mechanisms under the original charter then are what's called Chapter VI, which is sending peacekeepers in. And that's not usually during hostility, but it's very important afterwards, to, to keep, prevent the hostilities to happen again. And, and number, and the second one is, article, Chapter VII, which is the peace enforcement. And that would allow then the Secretary General of the United Nations to pull in essentially militaries from countries, not those countries that are party to the conflict obviously, to try to come in and abate the situation. That sometimes works, sometimes not. Obviously it's, is very political, and if the security council says no to it, which they often have done then it just doesn't work. And remember, before the end of the Cold War, so we're talking about 1989, 1992, 400 and, 274 [COUGH] attempts were made in the Security Council to bring in troops peace peace enforcement troops. But because the Soviet Union on one side, or the West on the other side could veto it, it didn't happen. So the first time that, that it was never stopped in the Security Council was in the Kurdish crisis. >> Right. >> And, interesting then that, either they abstained, did not veto. And tjat all of a sudden the lap was in the, the, the, the, the capacity or the demand to do this was put in the lap of the United Nations. And the United Nations does not have, did not have a force at that time to stop it. So, quite honestly, they contracted with the United Nations, and the UK and others. It ended up four countries and, and expanded to thirteen, who then were working under the flag of the United Nations to stop that hostility, to protect the Kurds that were in the mountains of Northern Iraq and, and Southern Turkey. So there's lots of different possibilities, but that's the kind of thing that would be then negotiated within the Security Council itself. >> Thank you Professor Burkle. The point of that discussion was to give us a glimpse of how complex these issues can be. We very quickly breezed through 150 years of history of the international humanitarian law, its genesis, its execution, its implementation. And we are at an extremely interesting juncture right now where the Geneva Conventions, international humanitarian law are struggling to be relevant. In 2014, the UNHCR declared that there are more refugees today than there have ever before, after World War II. Imagine where these millions would be if we did not have international humanitarian law to protect them.
