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Microsoft Calls For 'Digital Geneva Convention' (usatoday.com)
Microsoft is calling for a digital Geneva Convention to outline protections for civilians and companies from government-sponsored cyberattacks. In comments Tuesday at the RSA security industry conference in San Francisco, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said the rising trend of government entities wielding the internet as a weapon was worrying. From a report on USA Today: In the cyber realm, tech must be committed to "100% defense and zero percent offense," Smith said at the opening keynote at the RSA computer security conference. Smith called for a "digital Geneva Convention," like the one created in the aftermath of World War II which set ground rules for how conduct during wartime, defining basic rights for civilians caught up armed conflicts. In the 21st century such rules are needed "to commit governments to protect civilians from nation-state attacks in times of peace," a draft of Smith's speech released to USA TODAY said. This digital Geneva Convention would establish protocols, norms and international processes for how tech companies would deal with cyber aggression and attacks of nations aimed at civilian targets, which appears to effectively mean anything but military servers.
The US is a signee of all four Geneva Convention treaties. There were three additional protocols, though the US has only ratified the third, but not the other two. The various treaties that the US has signed:
GC I: Amelioration of the wounded and sick in the armed forces (1949)
GC II: Amelioration of the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked in the naval forces (1949)
GC III: Treatment of prisoners of war (1929/1949)
GC IV: Protection of civilian persons in times of war (1949)
P III: Protection of anyone wearing Red Cross, Red Crescent, or Red Crystal to denote medical/religious personnel (2005)
Signed but not ratified:
P I: Protection of victims of international armed conflicts (1977).
P II: Protection of victims of non-international armed conflicts (1977)
The Geneva Convention treaties are signed by a number of countries who seek to use them as a weapon against their enemy ("they broke the convention treaties, they should be tried for war crimes!") while they don't follow them themselves.
The Geneva convention and it's relatives and predecessors have been enforced. Yes, it tends to be after the fact, but the war crimes tribunal hasn't had a lack of work. The international community does tend to enforce the rules, either directly or via sanctions, and it appears to have had a major effect in the world.
It's really only a big problem with the offenders are Russia, the US or China. Even then, those powers are hesitant to break international law directly: see for example the US dissembling over the use of torture.