Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the ICRC: The rules of war are being ignored

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1:28This is fire. We need healing. We need trust. These companies don't really, they don't care what governments do. This is a war. The first thing that we want is the war to end. For this interview, I met Mirjana Spolyaric, the first woman to lead the International Committee of the Red Cross at its headquarters in Geneva. The ICRC is 163 years old. It works in war zones around the world with one central mission, to uphold the Geneva Conventions, the rules designed to preserve some humanity, even in war. All 196 states have ratified the conventions. In theory, the world agrees. Prisoners of war must be treated humanely.

2:17Civilians should not be targeted. Hospitals and health workers must be protected. Humanitarian aid should not be blocked. But in practice, Mirjana Spolyaric says, those rules are increasingly being flouted. In our interview, we talk about the growing lack of access to war zones, the ICRC being denied visits to prisoners of war, and what it means when even the most basic rules of war are ignored. We haven't been able to access any prisoners of war in Russia since 2024. As equally, we haven't still been able to access detainees in Israel. All these visits have been suspended since October 7. There are very important reasons why access to persons protected under the Geneva Convention is so important.

3:16From a human perspective, it's extremely important because on average, you are the least protected once you're detained. You lose your identity. If your family is not notified, you just disappear, to the point where sometimes we see people released that after many years of suffering in detention have forgotten who they are. If you want to uphold humanity, you have to talk about detention and what happens in prisons. Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Mirjana Spolyaric. I will refer to two situations of conflict. One is Gaza. Gaza today is for the largest part destroyed. Even though there has been a secession of hostilities, the humanitarian situation has barely improved.

4:10People live in 30 % now of the original territory of Gaza. They have not been able to start rebuilding or recovering even from the devastation because of the bans that are still existing for most material that will be necessary to fix the water systems, to repair the health infrastructure adequately and to make it possible for children to go back to school. I take another situation, and that is the one of the four in Sudan. The blood of atrocities committed on civilians could be seen from satellite pictures. It's the biggest, at the moment, existing humanitarian crisis with over 11 million displaced.

5:03And yet this crisis is not visible. What more needs to happen until we recognize that this cannot possibly be compatible with what is written and what was established in 1949 on the rubbles of the Second World War as a system today called the Geneva Conventions that was supposed to at all times uphold humanity and prevent the worst crimes even in war. What do you think's gone wrong? I mean, you've cited really shocking situations in Gaza and Sudan. And yet, as you say, post-World War II, the world's big powers, the world, in fact, was united around at this never again moment. there's a discrepancy between what is being said and what is actually being tolerated and that's the most dangerous part and this constitutes our biggest challenge at the moment you know the famous saying that bankruptcy happens at first gradually and then all of a sudden instantly this is what is happening with the geneva conventions at the moment you look away you You look away, you look away, you increase your tolerance level until all of a sudden you realize we've crossed the line.

6:24We've crossed the red line and we've done so collectively because these things are happening under international watch. Nobody can pretend it's not visible. You're talking there about deeds, atrocities, and that people are looking away. Could we look a little bit at words as well? Because we have heard some of the most powerful nations, I'm thinking, for example, of the US Secretary of State for Defense, who talked about no quarter, who told his troops not to bother with stupid rules of engagement. We've had some of the political leaders in Israel talking about human animals. animals. What do you think when you hear this kind of language?

7:13Okay, it's not deeds, but words can incite and encourage deeds. I will not refer to specific representatives of specific governments, because what I'm saying now refers to too many. Dehumanization is a phenomenon which is equally tolerated as the atrocities themselves. But we have to be conscious that dehumanizing language and the permissiveness with which this language is being deployed always precedes atrocities. It's a warning sign that was not recognized early enough in Rwanda. We have a tendency to think and assume or position as if ignoring rules would make us stronger and more decisive and more assertive in the defense of our own people.

8:05But in reality, if we see the consequences of wars that escalate beyond the possibility to contain them again, that is actually courageous and a sign of leadership to stand up and say, no, no, this can backfire. This can end up being self-destructive for my own people. We need to find a different strategy, one that would ensure that we will not see the impact on our daily lives across the globe that we are seeing today from this compilation and escalation of wars. And the fact that too many holders of power in too many places now, instead of pursuing political objectives with military means, have turned to pursuing military objectives by subjecting politics to it.

8:57I know you don't want to talk necessarily about specifics, but we've seen the start of a war in Iran. We've seen the abduction of a political leader in Venezuela. We've seen attacks on vessels in the Caribbean without the normal respect for maritime law. You know, when you see these things, are these the kinds of things you mean when you say we've crossed a red line? There doesn't seem to be any break anymore. It's all based on the false assumption that there is a thing like military victory, like an absolute winning of a war. That has never happened historically. We have to be conscious that at the end of the day, it's always a political agreement that decides whether peace and stability comes back.

9:57I'm talking about lasting peace and stability, which is the precondition for a resumption of full economic activity and especially economic growth that we need urgently also to see coming back. If you pursue an idea that you can win a war just by deploying military means, you will not be able to return back to the negotiation table because you would have crossed too many lines and destroyed too much confidence to be able to come back and say, OK, trust me, this is going to work. But ultimately what we see in the situation of the Strait of Hormuz, and now not only the Strait of Hormuz anymore, is that with the erosion of that trust, it becomes very difficult to bring the parties to a symmetric level of commitment and confidence that any agreement that will be concluded will actually be respected.

10:57At the same time, the asymmetry in military strategies allows both parties to continue for a long time. Even the weaker party will be able to continue for a long time because of the geographic conditions, but also because of the fact that today's weapons can be acquired cheaply whilst having an enormous destructive potential. If the current trends continue, every conflict that starts risks triggering another conflict and another escalation and another escalation. And then how are you going to wind this back? I think it's high time to come to the recognition that only an unconditional hold in hostilities and the coming together of an inadequate number of players and a serious conversation can resolve the current situation.

11:50because these conflicts again, especially the ones in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, are increasingly connecting. And the longer this situation persists, the less we as humanitarians will be able to intervene significantly to ease the suffering and the killing and the destruction.

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13:24Mirjana Spolyaric chooses her words carefully. The International Committee of the Red Cross is famously neutral and for journalists trying to get a story notoriously tight-lipped. Its workers don't take sides. They rarely go public about the atrocities they may have witnessed. But Spolyarich's frustration, perhaps even despair, at the growing disregard for the Geneva Conventions is clear. Even the core principles that were accepted in the Second World War, being allowed to visit prisoners of war and tell their families they were alive, are being flouted. OK, let's return to my conversation with Mirjana Spolyarich.

14:10I want to turn now to your work in the field, on the ground. One of your core mandates is visiting prisoners of war and detainees. Can we look specifically at the case of Russia-Ukraine? I know that you have had some difficulty, challenges accessing Ukrainians held in Russia, prisoners of war. How is that going? We haven't been able to access any prisoners of war in Russia since 2024. The dialogue with Russian authorities and dignitaries continues to resume that access. As equally, we haven't still been able to access detainees in Israel. All these visits have been suspended since October 7. There are two very important reasons why access to persons protected under the Geneva Convention is so important.

15:10From a human perspective, it's extremely important because on average, you are the least protected once you're detained. You lose your identity. If your family is not notified, you just disappear to the point where sometimes we see people released that after many years of suffering in detention have forgotten who they are. If you want to uphold humanity, you have to talk about detention and what happens in prisons. There is another aspect to it. Apart from being able to inform families and ascertain the dignified conditions of a detainee, having access to prisoners of war and systematic access and possibility to register the people to ascertain their whereabouts preserves the pathway back to ceasefire agreements.

16:02You saw us supporting the release of the hostages in Gaza and you saw us bringing back Palestinian detainees. We did that in the shortest possible time once the agreement was reached. We are trained for that and we are neutral. Just sticking with Russia for a moment, you haven't visited a single prisoner of war, Ukrainian prisoner of war, held by Russia since 2024. That must be thousands. What reason are the Russians giving you for this? I mean, they know your role in World War II. This was a comfort to so many, many families. All states have ratified the Geneva Conventions. And I think what is written in them is not only is still valid, but it's very clear.

16:48It's really basics to ensure that detainees are held in a way they have enough space, they have food that they can from time to time have the basic hygiene preventing the spread of diseases and to prevent harm to their health. These rules were adopted at the time because after the Second World War with hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war that needed to come back, it seemed logical to everyone. But now, today, having access to prisoners of war in international armed conflicts or situations of occupation is the most difficult for us to obtain. I will not speculate about the reasons for countries to suspend these visits, but it happens regularly.

17:37This is always dependent also on war dynamics and who's in power and what the strategies are of the different security services. You must fear, though, that a reason could be that things are happening in these places of detention that the authorities don't want you to see. There are some compelling reports, particularly from Israel, and some Ukrainians released also have terrible stories to tell. Look, I will not tell you what our detention officers see when they visit detention facilities across the globe. They have seen over the decades more bad things than good things. This is why these visits are so important.

18:22And the reason why we on average have good access is the fact that we remain confidential about it. We discuss it with the detention authorities. And then we, in the ideal case, have the possibility to come back and ascertain that things have improved. What very often is the case, we can bring essential medicine, we can prevent the further spread of diseases like tuberculosis. And most importantly, when detainees are starving, which is also regularly the case, we can bring food. Conditions on average improve. The exchange of messages with families not only brings respite to the families, but also helps us reduce the number of the missing people.

19:05I talk to so many families that are looking for their children. I talk to families that haven't for two years or more had knowledge of where the children are. I engage with military representatives as to my colleagues more often than I. I've never heard a soldier say, if I get captured as a prisoner of war, I don't want to get visited by the ICSC, on the contrary. They want these rules to be respected because they know they can be directly exposed to it. I've never heard a family tell me we don't want our son to be visited. I've never heard mothers say we want harm to be done to the children of our enemy.

19:51Never. All I hear from mothers in Palestine, in Gaza, from mothers in Israel, from mothers in Russia and mothers in Ukraine is that they don't want these things to happen to other people's children. Can I move to another one of your core mandates, which is supporting civilians in conflict zones, particularly sometimes with medical care. If we look at Gaza, if we look at Sudan, we have this real denial of access. What is really brutal is when the lack of access is entirely man-made. Now the geography in Sudan prevents us from going everywhere within the necessary time. But not having access to al-Fashir because we are being blocked from al-Fashir while atrocities are happening there.

20:46That is man-made. And that is the ultimate bad situation for a humanitarian actor and for this population concerned. Gaza suffers from lack of access, but that access could be given with a change in politics and with political determination to start the recovery process, because the trucks can come in at any moment if the checkpoints or the crossings were not only open, but if the import of certain goods that are currently banned because of dual use were allowed in. Israel says there's no hindrance at all. You can bring in certain items like food, and it's mainly items like food or hygiene products.

21:34But what you cannot import are the wires, the machines, the fuel, the oil that you need to run hospitals, repair hospitals, repair water pipes to improve the sanitary conditions and to increase access to clean water. Don't forget, we also need to bring material for hundreds of thousands of people who still live in makeshift tents. And there's another winter approaching. The dual use problematic in humanitarian assistance today is one of the biggest obstacles to a recovery process. You recently joined with the UN Secretary General to call for controls on lethal autonomous weapons. And of course, artificial intelligence is in the news very much with even some of its creators or developers calling for controls.

22:27You mentioned earlier in this interview new cheap weapons that can be fired from goodness knows how far away. You must be quite concerned about this. I'm very concerned about this. And it's a renewed call. We issued the first one three years ago, and not much has happened in terms of advancement towards the normative framework, which is absolutely needed for certain types of weapons, and especially weapons that are either unpredictable, develop a life of their own, or weapons that decide themselves without human oversight or human control who they are going to kill. We cannot delegate the decision over life and death to machines or algorithms.

23:14And we have to embrace the fact that the human condition is a normative one. We cannot organize life without rules. Sooner or later, we have to come back to accepting we cannot have functioning states or economies if we dismiss all rules and think that might is right and that this is the new way this world is going to function. It just comes with a lot of bad and very little good. The ICRC, of course, is famously neutral, impartial. You don't speak out very often, although you did last year tell me the conditions in Gaza were like hell, which is unusual for the ICRC. Do you sometimes, though, perhaps get impatient with member states?

24:03you think they should be telling each other, you know what, you're crossing a line there. You know, my advantage and that of my colleagues is that our conversations are for the most part confidential. And that allows us to be extremely frank and detailed and objective, also and factual. We never take sides. And I must say the fact that we never take sides and always refuse to take sides It makes it possible for everyone to sit down with us and to listen to us, and they do often listen to us because they want to hear things that other people cannot tell them because they are not as neutral and confidential as we are.

24:45We were created by states because they knew that they couldn't be neutral, the majority of them, but that they needed a neutral intermediary at some point. Can you be neutral in the face of atrocities, though? That's why we address them. And that's why we go to those who we think have committed certain crimes or violations of international humanitarian law and tell them that in our reading this is a violation. And we put it in writing. We submit reports and we ask for a dialogue to discuss these reports so that the respective actors or states can adjust their strategies. You know, it all starts with command and control, the training of your troops, and then adjusting your military doctrines and strategies.

25:34And very often we see a massive improvement if these things are being done, but it requires investments. You also have to budget for the training of your troops. You are the first woman to lead the International Committee of the Red Cross. you're about to start a second term the world is more violent and conflict ridden than when you started i'm just wondering where do you get the motivation and also maybe what keeps you up at night yes i'm the first woman when i was elected at first i didn't want to speak about me being the first woman because i wanted to speak about me being the president of of the international Committee of the Red Cross.

26:17But if you lead an organization that for the first time in 160 plus years is led by a woman, you realize that it had been urgent to elect a woman. It could have been another woman because it's half of the world population, you know, and every day I'm reminded of the fact that we are still very far away from seeing more women in this type of positions and and seeing more women at the table of very difficult conversations about war and peace. I'm very often the only one, and that needs to change. I mean, what definitely, and I always say this, what keeps me up at night, is that I have teenage children, and that they will live in the world that we are creating for them.

27:05And what I currently see is not ideal, you know, for their future. and I hope that every parent has this thought at the moment because we all can do our part and we all have a responsibility to make things better at our profession, within our school, no matter where. As we said, you're going to the General Assembly, you will meet world leaders, government leaders, heads of state. The people listening there are ordinary people and there is a trend in many countries to turn inward, faced with the problems of the world. There is a trend to think, I need to think about myself and just my family, which makes them forget about things like the Geneva Conventions, particularly if they're living in a country at peace.

27:59So maybe you could talk to those people and say, why these conventions, this kind of international law, is important to everybody. It hasn't even been 100 years since World War II ended, and that was a war that started in Europe, and for the most part ended in Europe as well. I was born in what was former Yugoslavia. It can always happen to you.

28:30Thank you for listening to the interview. You'll find more in-depth conversations on The Interview wherever you get your BBC podcasts, including episodes with the head of the World Meteorological Organization, Celeste Saulo, the former Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and the author, Maggie O 'Farrell. Until the next time, bye for now.

28:59Hey, it's Roman Mars, host of the 100 Objects series. This week, I'm joined by former Mythbuster Adam Savage to dial into the story of the Bell Telephone, an invention that completely transformed the way we communicate. We'll uncover the history behind a very specific, beloved model of the telephone, how it changed the world, and the story behind one of the most influential objects ever created. Listen to 100 Objects on the 99 % Invisible feed wherever you get your podcasts.