|
Gulf News reporter Abbas Al Lawati is attending a workshop in Geneva entitled Beyond Wars, Building Peace which is organised by the Swiss press agency InfoSud and the Media21 journalist’s network in coordination with the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.
Following a five day workshop, Abbas and eleven other reporters from around the world will go on a five day field trip to Lebanon to witness the reconstruction efforts after the war with Israel last year.
April 2, 2008
The US National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2015 report had said that one of the biggest threats to global security in the future will come from intra-state conflicts: those conflicts that are within states rather than between them.
Some of the characteristics of today’s conflicts seem to support that prediction. According to Dr Pal Sidhu of the GCSP, most of today’s conflicts are intrastate (Iraq), between states and non-state actors (America’s “war on terror”), and have regional or global dimensions (Palestine).
So as powerful states allocate more and more of their resources in fighting the untraditional, asymmetric wars with non state parties, the question arises whether international laws setting the rules for war have become too traditional themselves in that they mostly apply to warring states. Warring states – not non-state groups. That is why detainees at Guantanamo Bay will not be given prisoner of war (POW) status. Their loyalties lie not with states, but with ideologies.
I posed the question to Yves Daccord, director of communication for the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC). Was it time for the international community to recognise the changing nature of warfare and perhaps come up with a convention to give rights to non-state combatants?
As expected, the answer was no. Such a convention could, in my opinion, be seen as a shield under which militant groups could wreak havoc on the world. The consequences of giving rights to decentralised, non-territorial groups that can not be held accountable and do not risk loosing territory or sovereignty could be catastrophic.
Besides, said Daccord, which state would be ready to ratify such a convention, as it would work against states’ interests. And would it be fair to have a convention giving rights to non-state combatants without discussing it with them first? Would any state agree to sit with them?
They key, he said, was to implement current conventions rather than introduce new ones.
For now, it seems, more Guantanamo Bays and the Maher Arars are unpreventable.
|
