• Additional Protocol I relative to the Protection of victims of international armed conflicts;
• Additional Protocol II relative to the Protection of victims of non- international armed conflicts.
Significantly, common to all Geneva Conventions is article 3 which estab- lishes minimum rules to be observed by each party to an internal armed con- flict. This article provides that persons taking no active part in the hostilities “shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without adverse distinction” and “the wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for”.
Other humanitarian law instruments deal with topics as diverse as the protec- tion of cultural property in the event of armed conflict, the prohibition of biological and chemical weapons and of certain conventional weapons which may be deemed to be excessively injurious or to have indiscriminate effects. Recent examples of humanitarian law are the 1995 Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons and the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of Anti- Personnel Mines, Ottawa Treaty, which entered into force on 1 March 1999.