Change obsolete rules of warfare, says Bush envoy

Legal foundation for the Red Cross has helped maintain humanity and dignity in combat for 140 years

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The rules of war, which America's war crimes envoy yesterday declared obsolete, have evolved over a century and a half in which the nature of warfare has moved from pitched battles to the horrors of international terrorism.

The first guidelines were drawn up in 1864 and revised over the years. The conventions remain the most important international instruments for defending human dignity in war. They provide the legal foundation for the work of the Red Cross and have been signed by almost 200 countries.

These are the rules that President George Bush's envoy, Pierre-Richard Prosper, now suggests are out of date, as the US administration tries to deal with the aftermath of the international outrage which followed its refusal to allow Taliban and al-Qa'ida detainees the convention's protection at Guantanamo Bay.

In the summer of 1859, Henri Dunant, a sometime diarist and sometime merchant, was travelling in northern Italy when he arrived in the small village of Castiglione delta Pieve. Dunant could not have arrived at a more inauspicious time.

That day, 24 June, a battle was raging around Castiglione in what would be a decisive episode in the struggle for Italian unification. The French, allied to the Sardinians and with Emperor Napoleon III at their head, faced the Austrian troops, 300,000 men in all, engaged in a bitter and unrelenting battle.

By the end of the day, when the Austrians abandoned their positions, more than 6,000 men would be dead and 40,000 wounded in what was known as the Battle of Solferino.

Though initially an unintentional observer, Dunant played an important role that day, chronicling the battle and the efforts afterwards by local people to treat the dying and wounded regardless of their allegiance. Working from the church of Castiglione, the chiesa maggiore, Dunant helped local woman as they did what they could with only the most basic of materials.

The effect of this young man from a privileged background was so great that it led him to organise an international convention that eventually developed into guidelines for all countries involved in combat.

In A Memory of Solferino, published in 1862, Dunant wrote: "I was a mere tourist with no part whatever in this great conflict but it was my rare privilege, through an unusual train of circumstances, to witness the moving scenes that I have resolved to describe.

"Here is a hand-to-hand struggle in all its horror and frightfulness, Austrians and allies trampling each other underfoot, killing one another on piles of bleeding corpses, felling their enemies with their rifle-butts, crushing skulls, ripping bellies open with sabre and bayonet.

"No quarter is given; it is a sheer butchery; a struggle between savage beasts, maddened with blood and fury. Even the wounded fight to the last gasp. When they have no weapon left, they seize their enemies by the throat and tear them with their teeth."

Dunant wrote of the efforts to help the wounded: "Every family was bent on having French wounded under its roof, and no effort was spared to console the men for finding themselves far from their country, their families and their friends. The best doctors gave them their care, in private houses as well as in hospitals."

Dunant helped form the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, which later became the International Committee of the Red Cross. In response to an invitation from the International Committee, representatives from 16 countries and four philanthropic institutions gathered in Geneva and agreed on a basic code to ensure the protection of medical services on the battlefield.

This became known as the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field. It contained 10 articles. Later conferences extended the basic law to other categories of victims, such as prisoners of war.

In 1899, in The Hague, a second convention was signed, extending the principles to warfare at sea. In 1907 and again in 1929, there were further extensions.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, another meeting in 1949 dealt with civilians and prisoners of war. These last two conventions are perhaps the most important. Conventions III and IV offer wide-ranging protection for civilians and enemy forces taken prisoner. These can include "members of militia or volunteer corps", they say. They add: "Persons taking no part in the hostilities shall in all circumstances be treated humanely.

The conventions say that "passing of sentences without previous judgment from a regularly constituted court is prohibited" and that the "wounded and the sick shall be cared for". They add: "PoWs shall enjoy complete latitude in the exercise of their religious duties."

Henri Dunant could not have known that his actions more than 140 years ago would have resulted in such a legacy. It is this legacy that Mr Bush's representative, Mr Prosper, is trying to change.