Legal protection of war victims in international and non-international armed hostilities: A scholarly exposition into the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and two additional protocols of 1977

Abstract

The motive of every war has always been to actualize socio-economic and political interest. Attendantly, the ugly implications of these are gross violations of the International Law governing armed hostilities such as the four Geneva Convention of 1949, two additional protocols of 1977, etc. Several lives are lost and the properties of all kinds are destroyed. Women, children, the shipwrecked, the sick, the wounded, etc., often fall victims of war and a times are treated unfairly. Hence, it is the task of this study to x-ray the legal protections of war victims in armed hostilities and level of observance as contained in International Law of armed conflicts. Data for this research were generated mainly from secondary and primary sources such as textbooks, journals, official documents from United Nations, etc. Indeed, it was found that the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 provide effective legal protections for women and children during armed hostilities but with weak instruments for execution. Again, the wellbeing of the sick, the wounded, prisoners of war and the shipwrecked are also provided for in the two additional protocols of 1977, with little or no enforcement capabilities in contemporary armed conflicts. © Medwell Journals, 2012.