ABSTRACT
International conferences for the codification and progressive development of the laws of war are rare. The conference that produced First Protocol was the first since the 1949 Conference that resulted in the four Geneva Conventions, and First Protocol represents the first development of the law of combatant warfare since the Hague Convention of 1907. In the 1949 Geneva Conventions, medical aircraft are protected only when flying on routes, at heights and at times agreed to between the belligerents. First Protocol improves that unfortunate situation dramatically. Article 56 of the Protocol provides protection to the civilian population by imposing new restraints on attacks against certain installations containing dangerous forces which, if released as a result of an attack, could cause severe losses among the civilian population. Article 85 of the Protocol defines grave breaches as war crimes and includes apartheid among them.
