Do the Geneva Conventions apply to recent unrest in Portland or other US cities?
The Geneva Conventions are a series of agreements between nations that ensure humane treatment of aid workers, civilians and wounded or captured soldiers in wartime. The universally ratified Geneva Conventions were adopted in 1949.
Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions applies to domestic, or non-international, armed conflicts. In order for a domestic conflict to be considered such a conflict, certain criteria must be met, including the presence of an organized armed group that meets a minimum degree of organization and violence that reaches a “minimum level of intensity.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross has clarified that there is a difference between these conflcits and lesser domestic disturbances, such as “riots, isolated and sporadic acts of violence and other acts of a similar nature,” which are not considered armed conflicts.
