eli5 How does the Geneva convention work? How can it be enforced if nations are already at war? What incentive do armies have for following it?

Question

I mean there are no referees on the battlefield.

In: 3

Answer 1

I do a fair bit of japanese martial arts and went to a lecture once on “The Samurai Code” with a bunch of other foreigners.

Poor lecturer!

He went on about the code and then asked if there were questions and pretty much everyone had an example of “Well, famous and revered guy X broke the code when he did this. Why is that okay?”.

The answer boiled down to “Well I mean if you -really- want to you can ignore it” every time.

I think war time conventions are sort of on the same lines. If you’re famous and powerful enough then the conventions don’t apply. Even worse if you lose.