Unfortunately, the chronicles that tell us of the tragic events that occur in the areas of Middle Eastern crises, coming mainly from the tormented Syria, are nowadays unfortunately a few days ago, for example, the news of yet another killing of civilians (11, including two children, according to some sources of Syrian organizations for the defense of human rights) following the air raid carried out by the government military aviation on the locality of Al-Bab, currently controlled by ISIS; or, last week, that the same Isis would have destroyed the proscenium of the ancient Roman theater of Palmyra, in central Syria, and the Tetrapilo, a colonnaded structure still in the UNESCO heritage site.
Faced with these, as with many other tragedies (including, unfortunately, those that, although existing and just as serious, find little echo in the media world: (in primis) the war in Yemen), if the international political world is struggling to find a solution (which is difficult), instead, civil society seeks to know, deepen and compare: it is in this light, in fact, that it took place in Rome, the 26 last January, at the Rotary Club Roma Nord-ovest, in the splendid setting of the Gran Hotel Parco dei Principi, the conference concerning the "International humanitarian law and the law of armed conflicts: origin, history and evolution. From the 1864 Geneva Convention to non-state armed groups ".
A conference that, organized under the wise and enlightened direction of the current president of the Rotarian circle in question, Maria Carla Ciccioriccio, and having as a speaker the lawyer Marco Valerio Verni, expert and expert "in subiecta materia", wanted to offer not only an overview of this branch of international law, still not widespread in the community, but, above all, an opportunity to discuss a topic of enormous importance, useful for understanding and better understanding the different nuances that can take concepts such as "war crimes", "International crimes", and so on, as well as their gravity in light of the aforementioned legislation that, already at the end of the nineteenth century, the States wanted to codify, develop and, in some ways, impose themselves to (try to) avoid suffering to people who do not take or no longer take part in hostilities and put a limit to the use of means and methods of war.
The speaker thus traced the history of international humanitarian law, from the First Geneva Convention of 1864 (remembering, in particular, those who inspired it: Ferdinando Palasciano, before, but, above all, Henry Dunant, after, who, in the light of of the atrocities he witnessed in the battle of Solferino in 1859, he founded the "Geneva Committee for the Rescue of Wounded Soldiers", the first cell of what would become the International Committee of the current International Red Cross, together with four other Swiss citizens - the jurist Gustave Moynier, General Henry Dufour and the two doctors Louis Appia and Theodore Maunoir) to current problems, including, in particular, the fight against CDs non-State Armed Groups, passing through the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 (so-called Hague Law), the Four of Geneva of 1949 (with their two additional protocols of 1977 and the third of 2005), the Hague one, again, of the 1954 on the protection of Cultural Heritage during armed conflicts, without missing a reference to other fundamental steps in the normative development in question, including the "Convention for the prevention and suppression of the crime of genocide" of the 1948, that of the United Nations of the 1976, on the "prohibition of using techniques to modify the natural environment for military purposes or for any other hostile purpose", that of the 1980 "on the prohibition and limitation of the use of certain classical weapons" or, again, the most recent of the 2008, on the "cluster bombs." And, at the same time, explaining the consequent terminological passage that took place in time between "war law" and "international humanitarian law" or "right of armed conflicts ".
Principles such as humanity, distinction, proportionality, precaution, military necessity, and concepts such as universal justice, asymmetric war, non-state armed groups, "ius ad bellum", "ius in bello", and so on, have indicated to the qualified audience interesting insights of reflection on the complexity of such a subject which - the speaker explained - "it is so difficult but, certainly, not 'impossible', as Clausewitz argued; however necessary, because 'teaches to be human even by doing the war', paraphrasing a command dictated by St. Augustine in a letter he wrote in the 417 to General Bonifacio, representative of the Court of Ravenna in North Africa".
To assist, also the past president of the same Circle, Massimo Guidarelli, as well as some exceptional guests, including the Colonel of the Italian Red Cross Military Corps, Giuseppe Scrofani (national president, among other things, of the National Military Association on Italian Red Cross leave) and Dr. Giovanna Rita Bellini, director of the Minturnae archaeological area (which - as further evidence of the centrality of our cultural heritage in the world - was the place where, last year, the short film was shot - produced by the Radio and Television Department of the United Nations - Philanthropy Office - in order to promote one of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, namely the "Achieve Universary Primary Education", which presented the 17 last September at the headquarters of the UN under the "20 Global Goals Awards" and the following October 2016 in Rome, at the co It was the turn of Pope Francis during the international conference "Sport at the Service of Humanity" - ed.).
At the end of the conference, the appreciation and interest shown by the audience, to which the rapporteur, expressed his gratitude for the sensitivity shown in organizing an "ad hoc" evening on international humanitarian law, was lively. on the other hand, full harmony - with the purpose of serving the community that is notoriously distinguishing the Rotarian institution and aimed at alleviating its suffering, has wished that, in the very same forum, a "think" can be developed in the near future. -tank "of exception, almost to grasp the witness of that torch that, from Dunant and the" Committee of the Five "of 1862, it is ideally handed down from generation to generation, among all those who believe, and who believed - in the flame of law: even of what - as the lawyer Verni concluded- "has the romantic presumption of wanting to regulate the most atrocious of human manifestations: war".
(photo of the author)
