[HILAC lecture] The Fourth Geneva Convention in light of contemporary challenges in armed conflicts

*Registrations for this event are now full* 

Join us for a high-level discussion of the recently updated Commentary on the Fourth Geneva Convention. This event explores how legal protections developed to protect civilians in 1949 continue to evolve and adapt to the realities of 21st-century warfare.

The four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 form the cornerstone of modern international humanitarian law (IHL), the body of international law that regulates the conduct of armed conflict and seeks to limit its effects.  

IHL protects people who do not take part in the fighting, including civilians, medics, and aid workers, and those who are no longer participating in hostilities, such as prisoners of war and wounded, sick and shipwrecked military personnel. Contemporary IHL came into being with the original Geneva Convention of 1864 and has continued to develop in response to advances in weapons technology and changes in the nature of armed conflict.  

In 1949, the international community responded to the shocking civilian casualty rates experienced during World War II, and more particularly to the terrible effects that the war had on civilians, by revising the conventions then in force and adopting a new instrument: the Fourth Geneva Convention for the protection of civilians.  

In 2011, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and a team of renowned international experts embarked on a major project: updating the Commentaries on the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 1977 Additional Protocols. Since the ICRC published the original Commentaries in the 1950s and 1980s, respectively, the Geneva Conventions and Protocols have been put to the test, and there have been significant developments in how they are applied and interpreted in practice. The updated Commentaries seek to document these developments in the application and interpretations of these treaties and to serve as a tool for practitioners, by providing them with an understanding of the law as it is currently interpreted so that it can be applied effectively in today’s armed conflicts.  

The ICRC published the updated Commentary on the First Geneva Convention on protection of the wounded and sick in the field in 2016, the updated Commentary on the Second Geneva Convention on the protection of the wounded, sick and shipwrecked at sea in 2017, and the updated Commentary on the Third Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war was published online in 2020 and in print in 2021.  

The updated Commentary on the Fourth Geneva Convention was published online in October 2025. This event marks the launch of this Commentary in The Hague and the Netherlands.

This event is co-organised by the Amsterdam Center for International Law (ACIL), the T.M.C. Asser Instituut, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the Netherlands Red Cross.