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Terri Willard
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ICTs and the Geneva Convention
March 23, 2003 - 12:01 PM
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Well.... to no one's surprise, the Geneva Conventions are being thrown out the window in the conflict in Iraq. Al Jazeera has managed to gain access to the US POW's and has aired brief interviews with them. Many would suggest that this is in contravention of Article 13 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (see http://193.194.138.190/html/menu3/b/91.htm), which states:
"[P]risoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity."
These conventions came into force in 1950, in the early days of TV production. They seem to assume (and place legal responsibility on) national control over the media. It just makes me wonder to what degree the Conventions are really enforceable in a world in which EVERYONE can become a media producer.
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Mikael
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Re: ICTs and the Geneva Convention
March 23, 2003 - 06:11 AM
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Strictly in terms of media awareness of POWs... propaganda is one of the most powerful weapons that can be used in war like this one. Whether or not it *should* be used is a different story. I think that it is difficult to prevent these things from being shown on TV, because the media feels that it is responsible for providing as much information as possible to viewers. However, there must be a line drawn between news and sensationalism, and good taste must be kept in consideration.
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Mikael
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Re: ICTs and the Geneva Convention
March 24, 2003 - 01:22 AM
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The problem is, strengthening international law is not a guarantee that nations will fall into line. For example, the establishment of the ICC serves to strengthen international law but the US is not supporting it, which compromises its authority. There's no way to force countries to do anything. I think that a form of world governance is inevitable in the future, but I believe it'll take a really long time before the majority of nations will be comfortable with true global governance. The UN isn't anything close to a real world government, because it makes recommendations that are mainly not binding.
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Benni Chapman
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people are dying
March 24, 2003 - 02:38 AM
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Its sad that some peopl should worry about conventions while the govement of usa is in the proces of breaking the human lives.Al jazeera is a capitalistic establishment,similar with others al jazeera is making or getting the money,they doent care how.Thats why this attack first of all because the west or usa govement want to own the oil.There must be a line drawn between selfishness and destructon of human lives by the usa and the west.Good taste of news secondary,i dont blame al jazeera these warloving yanks soliders can refuse to give no interview.They can refuse to go and invade another peoples country.
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Terri Willard
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Media codes of conduct
March 24, 2003 - 04:40 AM
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I guess the part that fascinates me is that international law is binding (if it's binding at all) only on governments. However, in situations like the current one, the media have considerably more power than ever anticipated and they aren't bound by anything.
Does anyone know if there are professional codes of conduct for the media that are internally enforced within the profession? Particularly in times of war?
To what extent would those types of rules even be outdated today when ever person with a video camera and a Web connection can be a personal broadcaster?
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Mikael
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Re: ICTs and the Geneva Convention
March 24, 2003 - 06:33 AM
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Most media organizations do, in fact, have codes of conduct that they are supposed to abide by. The Codes of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists (http://www.spj.org/ethics_code.asp) is widely used and contains alot of valuable info. It doesn't contain any reference to what to do in war time; there also isn't any specific legal limitation as to what the media can show apart from usual criminal laws, as far as I know...
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alberto
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some thoughts....
March 24, 2003 - 10:49 AM
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Geneva Convention is deffinatly being thrown ot of the window, but we musn't forget that it was written to regulate a "ius in bello" therefore not much on TV involvement and Human Rights (they entered international conventions only after the Helsinki Agreements)
I'm against a war, but really think that we should go beyond simple criticsm against the US... I mean you write about Oil: France, who did nuclear tests in Muroa a few years ago(don't know how to spell that in English) has far more interests in Iraqi Oil than the US (they are the biggest importers of Oil from Iraq, Elf signed a contract recently and their point of view is clear after Chiracs intervention at the recent EU Summit, Chiraq who was so deeply involved in agressions against Algeria is hard to believe when he talks of peace...
If we talk about international law, we musn't forget that iraq has gone against 16 UN resolutions, the Kurds, human rights and that his people died and starved before the US intervention and not only in Iraq, and personally I worry about that also: death, sufference, and non-just actions are so independntly from who pushes the trigger: if only everything that is being done today to protest against the US was done yesterday against Saddam Hussein and other unjust regimes and governments implemented plans and action to reinforce international law and avoid disasters maybe we could of avoided a war and today had the instruments to avoid an international system based on the unilateral power of one country that ignores the UN and international conventions...
Mine is not a pro-US thought, I'm just saying that the main actors of International Relations are governments and states (this is the reality), if you want to have a primary role you need to do and act, very few do and act except untill disasters arrive, before that they turn their heads to the other sides... if all this was done before then maybe you would have the instruments to control also US non-just actions, the fact that today there is a war and you can't do anything about it means that to little or nothing was done...
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Mikael
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Re: ICTs and the Geneva Convention
March 24, 2003 - 11:47 AM
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It's true that Iraq has been a model of non-compliance with UN resolutions (for the most part) and continuation of the cycle of poverty and lack of services (not to mention lack of democracy...) but does that give the right to another country to use military force to "cleanse" the country? It seems to me that's the main issue here.
You are right, however, that most states just turn a blind eye until a problem arises. We need to intervene in ways other than military actions before conflicts arise, and if the international community becomes very involved in effecting change then it can happen. However, since states will still look at their own interests, that's tough to do because they'll have what's best for them at heart, as opposed to what's best for the country in question.
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alberto
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Re: ICTs and the Geneva Convention
March 24, 2003 - 12:06 PM
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No country has the right to attack another country (except in extreme cases i.e. WW2), I just wanted to say, if you want to avoid really this from happening words aren't enough because today it's happening and you can't do anything about it! I mean this by strenghening international law, and alternative solutions to a conflict but that these reach concrete aims: both against Iraq and US non-just actions in the same way.
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alberto
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Re: ICTs and the Geneva Convention
March 25, 2003 - 06:58 AM
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Unfortnatly I believe there is no prescise convention on media in war BUT there are loads of overlaps in other conventions which to some extent should regulate these aspects: one is the ethics of journalists (mikael's link) which even if has such a name is a set of law and juridical principles, communication laws, various conventions on human rights, Geneva convention on it's aspects on POWs and civil society in war time, ius in bello, right of states to preserve secret info during war time (to balance with laws on right to information...). After what happended in Somalia ("excessive information" there is big debate to create an International Convention on Information & War (create for example "the blu helmets of the information" but this is still under study... basically governemnts what to reduce information, media to make it free a half way compromise should be found in my opinion. Anyhow the way I see it what Al Jazeera did is against international law as it far goes beyond information...
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Roentgen
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Re: ICTs and the Geneva Convention
March 25, 2003 - 07:44 AM
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This is really a sad thing. The clips were seen on cable in the Philippines and I just can't believe that the Geneva Convention was utterly disregarded in this case.
Mikael and Alberto raised a very vital point. Clearly, in the interest of sensationalism, journalistic ethics is forgotten.
This just reminds me of a presentation by BBC's Nick Gowing on Media and ICT in times of crisis in last month's WSIS Prepcom 2 and I noticed how the presentation and the ensuing discussions regretfully lacked an exchange of views along the line of ethics. While media entities have a responsibility and duty to disclose information, that obligation should also be matched with the consequent responsibility to observe international conventions that respect human dignity.
The war is turning into an ugly propaganda battle.
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Mikael
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Re: ICTs and the Geneva Convention
March 25, 2003 - 12:06 PM
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I agree - if the media are responsible, they should all follow a specific code of ethics that precludes certain actions...
The problem with the media is that they are so used by the two sides in the war to spread propaganda. The media can't possibility discern between truth and untruth so it is easy for the Iraqis or Americans to spread (dis)information. Obviously there's no way for the media to filter the news because how could they? They're there to report, not to pass judgement (theoretically).
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