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[M]

prisoners and the rights of neutrality.

In our century a new spirit has influenced the development of the laws of war -- the idea that certain fundamental human rights require legal protection under all circumstances; that some kinds of individual suffering are intolerable no matter what threat may face the nations involved.

This humanitarian spirit has produced an impressive array of international agreements, the most recent and comprehensive of which are the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 on the Protection of War Victims.

But the law in action has been less impressive than the law in the books, and its patent deficiencies in implementation and compliance cannot be ignored.

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The Government of Switzerland is now host to a conference
aimed at developing protocols supplementing and improving the
1949 Geneva Conventions. It has suffered the fate of most inter-
national conferences of the day -- to be exploited for short-term,
and often shortsighted, political ends -- but considerable progress
has been made.

In particular, the conference has largely accepted our pro-
posal for requiring external observation of the treatment of
prisoners. Under that proposal, rules and procedures will be
established that will make it more difficult and embarrassing
for a nation to refuse to permit a neutral country or organization,
such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, to inspect

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its treatment of prisoners. The conference also seems likely
to adopt provisions we strongly support which would require
full accounting for persons who are missing or dead, and which
would for the first time grant immunity from attack to medical
evacuation aircraft.

It is still too early to say whether the conference will
produce a protocol on international armed conflicts that will
promote better compliance with the law, but the results to date
are encouraging.

Regretably, the same cannot be said about a
second protocol being considered by the conference -- to
establish certain minimum, humanitarian standards applicable to
civil wars, that is, to armed conflict within the territory of a

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single country. The need for this protocol is clear; we can
all recall cases in recent years where civil wars produced
human suffering on a scale far surpassing most international
armed conflicts. Unfortunately, however, many nations,
particularly the newly independent developing nations, have reacted
negatively fearing restraints on their use of force in sup-

pressing rebellions, and concerned that their newly-won
sovereignty might be impaired.

Sovereignty and independence are precious achievements --
for older, developed countries, as well as for the new and
developing countries. But no nation and no group of rebels needs,
or can legitimately claim a right to torture captives or execute
them summarily, without trial. The United States will continue

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to press for agreement on a protocol that requires respect
for the fundamental standards of decency by all nations in all
circumstances.

Finally, let me turn to the question of world prosperity,
and the role of international law in fostering its continued
growth.