Protecting civilians during armed conflicts in light of international humanitarian law

Abstract

International humanitarian law has approved international agreements that include legal rules that are a basic pillar in regulating armed conflicts. The four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the two protocols annexed to them in 1977 are among the most important agreements that are concerned with protecting victims of armed conflicts, whether international or internal.What international humanitarian law is most concerned with is the protection of civilians during armed conflicts, because of the rapid increase in wars and conflicts that the international community has witnessed and the gross violations of the rights of innocent civilians that accompany them, Although the Fourth Geneva Convention was devoted to protecting civilians during armed conflicts, it did not include a definition Integrated for civilians, and the term was mentioned more clearly in the First Appendix Protocol of 1977, which considered as a civilian every person who does not belong to members of the armed forces, members of militias or volunteer units that form part of these forces, or members of militias or volunteer units that are not part of them but Organized under responsible leadership, or members of organized resistance movements and residents who rise up to confront the occupier.The violence, indiscriminate killing, torture, deportation, deportation, and taking of civilians as hostages, and other acts criminalized by international humanitarian law, necessitated increasing the effectiveness of its executive, supervisory, and judicial mechanisms and developing them so that they become capable of achieving the goals of reducing the outbreak of wars and conflicts. weapons or mitigate their effects.