THE Geneva Conventions have been widely ignored as their defenders call for a new commitment to international humanitarian law on the 75th anniversary of the treaty protecting civilians, detainees and wounded soldiers in times of war.

Though officially adopted by nearly all the world’s countries since they were finalised on August 12 1949, the conventions are back on their heels as armed militia groups and national forces regularly disregard the rules of war.

“International humanitarian law is under strain, disregarded, undermined to justify violence,” President Mirjana Spoljaric of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which oversees the conventions, said today.