In Somalia, a group of young actors, musicians and scriptwriters are working on a play which is to be produced, filmed and distributed in the form of a video throughout the country. One scene shows a young militiaman boasting of how he has terrorized the population and the reaction of the woman he loves. She evokes the suffering caused by his conduct and refuses to marry a man who has disregarded the code of honour of his clan. This creative work contains a message for young militiamen about the effect of unbridled violence on both its victims and its perpetrators.

Violations of international humanitarian law are not a new phenomenon. Nor is the establishment of an international criminal court to counter such violations a new idea. The first project creating a link between violations of a humanitarian treaty — that is, the Geneva Convention of 1864 for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field — and penal sanction by a permanent international judicial body was drawn up by Gustave Moynier, one of the founders of the ICRC Like so many other projects, it did not materialize, however.

Two prominent events that occurred midway through this century had a great impact on international criminal law. The first milestone in this area was the trials of the major war criminals held in Nuremberg and Tokyo in the wake of the Second World War. They highlighted the principle of individual criminal responsibility for certain serious violations of the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict; the terms “crimes against the peace”, “war crimes”, and “crimes against humanity” found formal recognition. The second event, following closely on the first, was the adoption of the four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 for the protection of war victims. These instruments established a specific framework for the prevention and punishment of the most serious violations of the provisions they contain; the technical term “grave breach” was coined.

On 15 June 1998, a diplomatic conference in Rome will open a five-week session to remedy one of the long-standing gaps in the implementation system for international humanitarian law by adopting a treaty to establish a permanent international criminal court. Although the current effort within the United Nations to set up a permanent court began half a century ago with a proposal in 1947 by Henri Donnedieu de Vabres, the French judge on the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, it is not widely known that the first serious such proposal appears to have been made more than a century and a quarter ago by Gustave Moynier, one of the founders, and longtime President, of the International Committee of the Red Cross. He wrestled with many of the same problems which will face the drafters of the statute at the 1998 diplomatic conference and the strengths and weaknesses of his proposal still have relevance today. This short essay describes that proposal and its origins, reviews the reaction to it of his contemporaries and its impact on subsequent history and concludes with an assessment of the merits of Moynier's plan.

We should start by noting that, even today, not all post-conflict situations are marked by a return to true peace. A situation of latent conflict often persists, ranging from isolated hostile acts, sometimes terrorist in nature, to sporadic military operations which maintain a climate of aggressivity. In such situations, it may be hard to ensure the security conditions which are so vital to the proper functioning of justice. Effective justice is thus conditioned by an essentially political factor: without a real consensus on ending armed conflict, it is impossible to restore an order in which justice can be seen as a realistic goal. However, if there is no political will to punish those responsible for behaviour that is morally unacceptable, quite apart from being legally criminal, it will be impossible to pave the way for authentic peace.

During World War I, chemical warfare agents were widely used for the first time on all major fronts with an unprecedented number of casualties, and immediately after the war attempts were made to outlaw this latest weapon. Responsibility for the drafting of specific laws fell to the League of Nations, reflecting the belief that this was a matter of concern for the whole world, not just for the victors in the war. On 17 June 1925, the Geneva Protocol for the prohibition of the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases and of bacteriological methods of warfare was signed by 26 States.3 It contained a categorical prohibition to resort to chemical and biological warfare. The signature of the Protocol raised high hopes of an effective ban on chemical warfare, but adherence progressed slowly. A number of States, visibly not trusting the Protocol to be implemented in the forthright manner suggested by the text, made major reservations.

The International Committee of the Red Cross is deeply concerned about the increasing number of children recruited or volunteering to take part in hostilities throughout the world. Such children are exposed to the worst dangers and the most horrible suffering, both psychological and physical. What is more, they are easily manipulated and encouraged to commit grievous acts which they are often unable to comprehend.