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The journalist's right to information in time of war and on dangerous missions1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Hans-Peter Gasser
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Extract

It is commonplace to say that we live in an age of instantaneous information and communication. During the occupation of Iraq by the United States and its allies, pictures taken in the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad and showing members of the US Armed Forces and Iraqi detainees in disgraceful circumstances could be seen within minutes all over the world. The message carried by those pictures changed the discourse on the Iraq war of 2003–2004.

We have become used to instant information through real-time reporting on events occurring in the various corners of the world. This flow of news is taken for granted, and we expect our favourite radio or TV station to deliver the latest news at every moment of the day. Seeing pictures taken inside a well-guarded prison in a war a few thousand kilometres away is no longer a surprise.

Wars have always attracted writers eager to report on what happens when men fight against men. Some of these reports have become immortal works of world literature. Some may even have influenced the course of history. Only a few memorable examples are Homer's epic poem on the fall of Troy, Julius Caesar's De bello gallico or the Indian epic Mahabharata. On a different level, who knows that Winston Churchill, at the age of 25, was a war correspondent reporting from the Boer War in 1899?

An accidental war correspondent deserves to be mentioned here, Henry Dunant, who happened to witness the aftermath of a particularly murderous battle, the Battle of Solferino in northern Italy in 1859.

Type
Current Developments
Information
Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law , Volume 6 , December 2003 , pp. 366 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © T.M.C. Asser Instituut and the Authors 2003

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References

3. Homer, , Iliad/Homer, translated by Fitzgerald, Robert (New York, Anchor Books 1989)Google Scholar.

4. Caesar, Julius, De bello gallico (London, Bristol Classical Press 1993)Google Scholar.

5. Mahabharata, translated by Narasimhan, C.V (New York, Columbia University Press 1965)Google Scholar.

6. See Knightley, P., The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-maker from the Crimea to Kosovo (London, Prion 2000)Google Scholar, an informative and fascinating history of war reporting.

7. Dunant, H., A Memory of Solferino (Geneva, ICRC 1986)Google Scholar.

8. GA Res. 217 A (III), adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948, UN Doc. A/810(1948).

9. Art. 19 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966 (ICCPR); Art. 10 European Convention on Human Rights 1950 (ECHR); Art. 13 American Convention on Human Rights 1962; Art. 9 African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights 1981.

10. By Senator Hiram Johnson (1917), quoted by Knightley, supra n. 6.

11. Spies are persons who clandestinely, or under false pretences, gather information on behalf of one side within the territory of the other. See Art. 46 Protocol I.

12. Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, with Annex: Regulations Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, The Hague, 18 October 1907.

13. GA Res. 2673 (XXV), 9 December 1970.

14. See the various reports by the UN Secretary-General entitled ‘Human rights in armed conflicts: protection of journalists on dangerous missions in zones of armed conflict’, UN Docs.: A/9073, 9 July 1973; A/9643, 22 July 1974; A/10147,1 August 1975.

15. GA Res. 2854 (XXVI), 20 December 1971.

16. GA Res. 3058 (XXVIII), 2 November 1973 and GA Res. 3245 (XXIX), 29 November 1974.

17. Report of the working group, in Final Act of the Diplomatic Conference, Vol. X, p. 75, Doc. CDDH/I/237. For the texts of all preliminary drafts, see Levie, H. S., Protection of War Victims: Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, Vol. 4 (Dobbs Ferry, Oceana Publications 1979) pp. 119–143Google Scholar.

18. Final Act of the Diplomatic Conference, Vol. VI, p. 243, Doc. CDDH/SR.43.

19. GA Res. 3500 (XXX), 15 December 1975.

20. Final Act, Vol. X, p. 75, Doc. CDDH/I/237.

21. Final Act, Vol. Ill, p. 303, Doc. CDDH/I/242.

22. See, inter alia, the statements by the delegates of Canada and the USA, Final Act, Vol. VIII, p. 367, Doc. CDDH/I/SR.35.

23. Final Act, Vol. VI, p. 243, Doc. CDDH/SR.43.

24. To the author's knowledge, in no conflict since 1949 has a detained war correspondent ever claimed or been granted formal POW status.

25. Final Act, Vol. VIII, p. 313, Doc. CDDH/I/SR.31, para. 12.

26. Holding a TV camera is of course not a hostile act. But a cameraman was killed in Baghdad in 2003 because a US soldier allegedly mistook the camera for a weapon.

27. This is no doubt the case of the 'embedded' journalists who, during the ínvasion of Iraq in 2003, mingled with the armed forces in a way which made distinction impossible. See Tumber, H. and Palmer, J., Media at War: The Iraq Crisis (London, SAGE Publications 2004)Google Scholar and infra 4.3.

28. Art. 4A(4) Third Geneva Convention. On their rights and duties, see Arts. 12–125.

29. Arts. 42 and 78 Fourth Geneva Convention.

30. Arts. 99–108 Third Geneva Convention; Arts. 71–75, 117–126 Fourth Geneva Convention.

31. Arts. 21–121 Third Geneva Convention; Arts. 76, 79–135 Fourth Geneva Convention. See Rodley, Nigel S., The Treatment of Prisoners under International Law, 2nd edn. (Oxford, Oxford University Press 1999)Google Scholar.

32. Art. 19 ICCPR; Art. 10 ECHR; Art. 13 American Convention on Human Rights 1962; Art. 9 African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights 1981.

33. Art. 4(2) ICCPR; Art. 27 American Convention on Human Rights; Art. 15 ECHR.

34. E.g., Art. 10 ICCPR.

35. Art. 27 Fourth Geneva Convention.

36. International News Safety Institute (INSI) <http://www.newssafety.com>.

37. Reporters without Borders <http://www.rsf.org>. See also their Practical Guide for Journalists 2002.

38. ICRC Hotline <http://www.icrc.org>. Contact at <http://[email protected]> or call 00 41 79 217 32 85.

39. See supra 1.2. The latest version of the UN draft may be found in the UN Secretary-General's Note, UN Doc. A/10147, 1 August 1975.

40. Art. 2(a) UN draft Convention.

41. Ibid., Art. 6.

42. Ibid., Art. 5(2).

43. Ibid., Arts. 3 and 4.

44. Ibid., Art. 9.

45. Ibid., Art. 13(2).

46. See <http://www.pressemblem.ch> with information on the initiative. See also the proposed text of an International Convention on the Protection of Journalists.

47. See ICTY, ‘Final report to the Prosecutor by the Committee Established to Review the NATO Bombing Campaign Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’, 39 ILM (2000) pp. 1257 et seqGoogle Scholar, in particular, paras. 47 and 76. The authors of the report only had to examine whether there was sufficient reason for an indictment of those responsible for the campaign and not whether their acts were compatible with international humanitarian law or not.

48. Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana, Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza and Hassan Ngeze, Case No. ICTR-99–52-T, Judgement, Trial Chamber, 3 December 2003.

49. Ibid., Judgement, Summary, para. 99.

50. Ibid., para. 116.

51. ‘Report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on the protection of civilians in armed conflict’, UN Doc. S/1999/957, 8 September 1999, para. 48. See also the follow-up report, UN Doc. S/2001/331, 30 March 2001, and the Statement of the President of the Security Council, UN Doc. S/PRST/2003/27, 15 December 2003.

52. See, e.g., Art. 20 ICCPR.

53. See Tumber and Palmer, supra n. 27.

54. See Knightley, supra n. 6.

55. On the history and background of ‘embedded journalism’, see Tumber and Palmer, supra n. 27, pp. 1–9 and pp. 48–63.

56. See ibid., their main purpose is to examine these questions.

57. See Tilgner, U., Der inszenierte Krieg: Täuschung und Wahrheit beim Sturz Saddam Husseins (Berlin, Rowohlt 2003) pp. 131–134Google Scholar.

58. See Knightley, supra n. 6, passim.

59. See supra 4.2. He remains a protected person in the sense of the Geneva Conventions.

60. Prosecutor v. Radoslav Brdjanin and Momir Talić, Case No. IT-99–36, Decision on Motion to Set Aside Confidential Subpoena to Give Evidence, Trial Chamber, 7 June 2002.

61. Prosecutor v. Radoslav Brdjanin and Momir Talić, Case No. IT-99–36-AR73.9, ‘Randall Case’: Decision on Interlocutory Appeal, Appeals Chamber, 11 December 2002, paras. 34 et seq.

62. Ibid., paras. 35–38.

63. Ibid., para. 36.

64. Ibid., para. 42.

65. Ibid., para. 50.

66. Gutman, R.W., ‘Spotlight on violations of international humanitarian law: the role of the media’, 38 IRRC (1988) pp. 619–625CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67. Ibid., p. 624.

68. Gutman, R.W. and Rieff, D., eds., Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know (New York, W. W. Norton & Company 1999)Google Scholar.