Even before the Geneva convention, there were rules of war and post Geneva, wars happened with without it's rules being enforced, like WW2 between Germany and the Soviets. I say there is certain rules, such as fair treatment of prisoners (iirc in Spinward Marches Campaign there is a case of a Marine being brought up on warcrimes charges). Maybe there isn't a Geneva convention as such, but say the Zhodani and Imperials are both civilized states and don't go out of their way to inflict needless cruelty. The caprice of human nature is what it is though and there will always be abuses.
Sure there were unwritten laws of war before the Geneva Convention, but, as unwritten they were, they were subject to interpretation and many new tactics were seen as breaking them (e.g. US revolution and french revolutionary tactics to shoot at the officers to break the ranks were seen at their time as war attrocities).
And sure too many breakings of the Convention have occurred after its signing (in WWII it was not only broken in the Russian front, nearly the only point not broken in WWII was the banning of chemical weapons). The fact of being civilized nations don't mean they don't commit war attrocities, if history is to show us anything.
The Royal Navy's Articles of War had a couple that dealt with how to treat prisoners of war, not because of any treaties, but simply because that was the proper way to treat prisoners.
Sure, but there was a tradition, in naval combat, to take prisoners (after all the laws of the sea, form quite before, gave sailors a honor bond to rescue shipwrecked), but also not to scuttle the ship. I see it (not sure it was) as a
quid pro quo agreement: you don't scuttle your ship, I treat 'well' your surrounded personnel. Lawrence's
don't give up the ship was seen by many as a unnecessary loss of lives, and as such as a breaking of the war uses (I don't dare to call them laws) in his time.
Since its signing (and severeal tech developements that difficulted boardings, among other things, I'm not saying here there's a single cause), few (if any) warships have been captured in combat. I wonder if the fact the shipwrecked had legal protection, even if they scuttled the ship, has also its part in that.
My take is that the Imperial Code of Military Justice is more or less copied from the Sylean Federation's code of military justice, and that that in turn was more or less copied from the 2nd Imperium's code of military justice, and that was copied almost verbatim from the Terran Condereration's code of military justice (with perhaps a small leavening of stuff from the 1st Imperium's code), and that in turn was formulated by the United Nations, and thus embodied the Geneva Conventions.
But this code would only apply to Imperials (and probaly Solomani). what I mean is a broader agreement with (at least) other human states (I understand it could be more difficult to bind in this agreement Varg or K'Kree, due to their diferent psicologies. Aslan I see easier, as honor is very important for them, and they have strict war laws).
Just the same, canon states the Terran government was going to enslave the Vilani which forced Estargarriba to do his coup d'etat. A pretty big violation of what is in the Geneva Convention.
I gess you mean the enslaving of the civilian population would be a break of the Convention. Estigarribia's coup wouldn't, as Geneva Convention doesn't deal with coupt d'etat.
So seen, Estigarribia was defending the Convention, but that was made by Terran military, where the idea of the Convention has been ingrained for centuries, when Estigarribia made his coup.
Though IMTU, if it ever came up, I would say the Imperium derives it's jurisprudence from it's own experience, or at least that is what they would say. Such as we are THE Imperium, bar none, we own the sky.
And this lead to Imperial Laws of War, but are they applied in broader wars?
