Conflicts turning on civilians, warns Red Cross chief

Conflicts are deliberately being turned into wars against civilians with drones and other technology and countries are flouting international law with impunity, the Red Cross chief said Friday.

"We count and classify more conflicts today than we did 15 years ago -- twice as many; four times as many as we did 30 years ago," Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, told the Munich Security Conference.

"But it's not only the numbers: it's the intensity, it's the scale and it's the fact that conflicts are over-layered with fast technological advancement -- amplifying the negative impacts on civilians, on entire countries because they increase displacement at fast pace," she said.

"There's never a moment where drones fight against drones. Drones fight against the military and increasingly against civilians. Wars are turning into wars not against weapon-bearers but against civilians -- deliberately.

"And that is the impact of the hollowing out of international humanitarian law."

Spoljaric said the rule of law was only upheld by political will to respect universally-ratified international agreements.

International humanitarian law is a set of rules that seek to limit the effects of armed conflict. It protects people who are not or are no longer participating in hostilities and restricts the means and methods of warfare.

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The ICRC acts as the guardians of international humanitarian law.

During a panel discussion on humanitarian assistance, Spoljaric said it was up to leaders to make such laws a political prority and adopt a protective interpretation of the laws, rather than a permissive one.

"Only then will we be able to curb" the number and scale of conflicts, and reduce the cost of humanitarian aid, she said.

She said international humanitarian law had to be tied to national security interests, "otherwise it will not become a priority".

"Because if you dismantle the rules of war, if you say 'I will win this war at all costs, no rules apply', you are sending a signal to every arms bearer that everything is allowed, and it's a question of time until a bomb explodes in your town.

"The new technologies, the spread of armed groups make this possible today."

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