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Preparing for War: The Making of the 1949 Geneva Conventions
The 1949 Geneva Conventions are the most important rules for armed conflict ever formulated. To this day they continue to shape contemporary debates about regulating warfare, but their history is often misunderstood.
For most observers, the drafters behind these treaties were primarily motivated by liberal humanitarian principles and the shock of the atrocities of the Second World War. This book tells a different story, showing how the final text of the Conventions, far from being an unabashedly liberal blueprint, was the outcome of a series of political struggles among the drafters. It also concerned a great deal more than simply recognizing the shortcomings of international law revealed by the experience
of war.
To understand the politics and ideas of the Conventions' drafters is to see them less as passive characters responding to past events than as active protagonists trying to shape the future of warfare. In many different ways, they tried to define the contours of future battlefields by deciding who deserved protection and what counted as a legitimate target. Outlawing illegal conduct in wartime did as much to outline the concept of humanized war as to establish the legality of waging war itself.
Through extensive archival research and critical legal methodologies, Preparing for War establishes that although they did not seek war, the Conventions' drafters prepared for it by means of weaving a new legal safety net in the event that their worst fear should materialize, a spectre still haunting us today.
For most observers, the drafters behind these treaties were primarily motivated by liberal humanitarian principles and the shock of the atrocities of the Second World War. This book tells a different story, showing how the final text of the Conventions, far from being an unabashedly liberal blueprint, was the outcome of a series of political struggles among the drafters. It also concerned a great deal more than simply recognizing the shortcomings of international law revealed by the experience
of war.
To understand the politics and ideas of the Conventions' drafters is to see them less as passive characters responding to past events than as active protagonists trying to shape the future of warfare. In many different ways, they tried to define the contours of future battlefields by deciding who deserved protection and what counted as a legitimate target. Outlawing illegal conduct in wartime did as much to outline the concept of humanized war as to establish the legality of waging war itself.
Through extensive archival research and critical legal methodologies, Preparing for War establishes that although they did not seek war, the Conventions' drafters prepared for it by means of weaving a new legal safety net in the event that their worst fear should materialize, a spectre still haunting us today.
- GenresInternational Relations
400 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 1, 2022
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January 28, 2024
A granular account of drafting process of Geneva Conventions. Basically, the victorious Great Powers believed thay had to do something after Nazi atrocities, but at the same time, they needed to prepare for anti-colonial wars or anti-Communist wars in which Nazi-style atrocities would be quite helpful. So they wanted to limit themselves, but not much. ICRC tried to navigate fine line among these contradictory impetuses.
Due to extremely traumatic experience in WWII, and due to its efforts to win hearts & minds globally, Soviet Union emerged with the most progressive proposals, most far-reaching insofar protection of civilians and human rights was concerned.
One of the Soviet objectives in 1949 was to publicly embarrass the Western powers by supporting proposals to strengthen international legal standards in wartime. (48)
Soviets also demanded a reference to human rights (“of the greatest importance”), but went one step further: their suggested preamble even recognized the right to life, a move calculated to shame the Anglo- American delegations’ opposition to banning the death penalty. (92)
As they had done before at the UN, the Soviets tried to incorporate principles of national self- determination and decolonization into the Conventions’ genetic code. (127)
French were quite progressive insofar placing limits on occupying power, and protection of partisans was concerned, due to their brutal experience of Nazi occupation and national mythology of resistance. Still, they faced conundrum how to codify such rights without these applying, for example, to Indochina where they were imperial occupants.
British were by far the most regressive. US were also regressive, but wanted to compete for hearts & minds with Soviet Union. Still, they wanted to maintain the benefits of their technological superiority, which is why Geneva Conventions don't speak much about indiscriminate bombing, and are silent on nuclears warfare.
The United States envisaged blockade, nuclear weapons, chemical weaponry, and air bombing as four weapons crucial for the preservation of a favorable postwar military balance that would ensure its national security. (222)
Basically all Great Powers, Soviet Union and US included, were again neutral judicial oversight. US were keen to present Nurnberg trials as more of an abberation than a new precedense.
Robert Quentin- Baxter, the former assistant of the New Zealand judge at the Tokyo trials, felt that Yingling was trying to undermine the ICRC’s proposals by “denying the authority of the Nuremberg and Tokyo judgments.” In private conversations, the US delegate apparently told the New Zealander delegate “quite frankly” that he “was, and had always been, opposed to the holding of war trials.” Expressing regret about his country’s involvement in Nuremberg after his experiences as the State Department’s legal advisor for the occupied areas, Yingling insisted that the Conventions “should contain no provision which acknowledged [ . . . ] the authority of the Nuremberg judgment.” Quentin- Baxter believed it would have been wiser if his US allies had not espoused such views, given the central role that they had played in the Nuremberg trials. (285)
Basically, it's an infuriating read. There were good impulses, otherwise nothing like Geneva Conventions would take place. But these impulses were almost childish in that all countries tried remove only the hurt they have personally felt (such as French with resistance, or US with POW treatment). It confirms post-colonial studies conclusion that what was different in WWII was not much the brutality, but that the brutality previously reserved for colonial subjects was now directed ont Western states, and they didn't like it much. These childish but good impulses were checked by perception that brutality is useful, after all.
Sure, 1949 Conventions were far from final word on IHL and human rights. But this is good reminder of how flawed the IHL instruments are. And when you see states looking for loopholes - such as Israel in Gaza, or Russia in Ukraine - which would allow them to kill more civilians, these should only be seen as reasons to improve IHL instruments, and close the loopholes, rather than cynically exploit them.
Due to extremely traumatic experience in WWII, and due to its efforts to win hearts & minds globally, Soviet Union emerged with the most progressive proposals, most far-reaching insofar protection of civilians and human rights was concerned.
One of the Soviet objectives in 1949 was to publicly embarrass the Western powers by supporting proposals to strengthen international legal standards in wartime. (48)
Soviets also demanded a reference to human rights (“of the greatest importance”), but went one step further: their suggested preamble even recognized the right to life, a move calculated to shame the Anglo- American delegations’ opposition to banning the death penalty. (92)
As they had done before at the UN, the Soviets tried to incorporate principles of national self- determination and decolonization into the Conventions’ genetic code. (127)
French were quite progressive insofar placing limits on occupying power, and protection of partisans was concerned, due to their brutal experience of Nazi occupation and national mythology of resistance. Still, they faced conundrum how to codify such rights without these applying, for example, to Indochina where they were imperial occupants.
British were by far the most regressive. US were also regressive, but wanted to compete for hearts & minds with Soviet Union. Still, they wanted to maintain the benefits of their technological superiority, which is why Geneva Conventions don't speak much about indiscriminate bombing, and are silent on nuclears warfare.
The United States envisaged blockade, nuclear weapons, chemical weaponry, and air bombing as four weapons crucial for the preservation of a favorable postwar military balance that would ensure its national security. (222)
Basically all Great Powers, Soviet Union and US included, were again neutral judicial oversight. US were keen to present Nurnberg trials as more of an abberation than a new precedense.
Robert Quentin- Baxter, the former assistant of the New Zealand judge at the Tokyo trials, felt that Yingling was trying to undermine the ICRC’s proposals by “denying the authority of the Nuremberg and Tokyo judgments.” In private conversations, the US delegate apparently told the New Zealander delegate “quite frankly” that he “was, and had always been, opposed to the holding of war trials.” Expressing regret about his country’s involvement in Nuremberg after his experiences as the State Department’s legal advisor for the occupied areas, Yingling insisted that the Conventions “should contain no provision which acknowledged [ . . . ] the authority of the Nuremberg judgment.” Quentin- Baxter believed it would have been wiser if his US allies had not espoused such views, given the central role that they had played in the Nuremberg trials. (285)
Basically, it's an infuriating read. There were good impulses, otherwise nothing like Geneva Conventions would take place. But these impulses were almost childish in that all countries tried remove only the hurt they have personally felt (such as French with resistance, or US with POW treatment). It confirms post-colonial studies conclusion that what was different in WWII was not much the brutality, but that the brutality previously reserved for colonial subjects was now directed ont Western states, and they didn't like it much. These childish but good impulses were checked by perception that brutality is useful, after all.
Sure, 1949 Conventions were far from final word on IHL and human rights. But this is good reminder of how flawed the IHL instruments are. And when you see states looking for loopholes - such as Israel in Gaza, or Russia in Ukraine - which would allow them to kill more civilians, these should only be seen as reasons to improve IHL instruments, and close the loopholes, rather than cynically exploit them.
Displaying 1 of 1 review