Product Description

For everyone who wants to become better informed about the news, this book lays out the benchmarks for monitoring the watchdogs and governments. Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, it illustrates what is legal in war and what is not. The text presents reportage of contemporary journalism while the A-Z format and the graphic design make accessible the complicated and often harrowing subject matter. as well as providing visual bookmarks, the photographs document the reality behind the words. The heart of the law, and of the book, are the grave breaches of serious war crimes, delineated in the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the First Additional Protocol of 1977. The book gives an example of each breach and journalists who were at the scene report on what they saw. These articles are labelled crime. Leading scholars have contributed shorter articles on techical topics, most labelled the law. There are also essay-length articles on major themes, labelled key terms. To provide an overview of the current scene, ten writers takes a critical look at recent conflicts and examine them in the light of the crimes of war. Complementing these case studies are experts' overviews of the applicable law.