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Every human being operating in a war zone should be guided by the principle of Do No Harm.
This concept was born after the miserable wars of the 1990s – Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda – in a framework developed by Mary B Anderson, an American conflict analyst. Her influential 1999 book Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace – or War emerged from a growing realisation that well-intentioned international interventions were sometimes unintentionally fuelling the very conflicts they sought to alleviate.
Do No Harm essentially means that when you intervene in a crisis – whether through journalism, justice, policy or humanitarian action – you must ensure your actions do not worsen the conflict or endanger the most vulnerable. Aid distribution should not lead to corruption; assistance should not strengthen one ethnic group over another; and the documentation of war crimes – which is what I do – must not expose witnesses to retaliation.
It means always anticipating the consequences before acting.
These ethics should also apply to soldiering and military campaigns. In fact, international humanitarian law demands it through the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution.
Yet in practice, they are often ignored.
The war in Iran is the latest conflict in which civilians have borne the brunt of violence. Hundreds have reportedly been killed, thousands injured, and entire communities displaced while critical infrastructure is destroyed. Across modern conflicts, civilians consistently account for the vast majority of victims. The more wars I have reported on, the more clearly I see the devastating effect on civilians. According to the UN, in contemporary wars civilians now make up roughly 90 percent of casualties, a dramatic reversal of earlier centuries when soldiers were the primary victims.
The UN has warned that the spiralling conflict in the Middle East is already taking a severe toll on civilians. This week the Human Rights Council in Geneva was briefed by experts who said the war is having a growing and devastating impact on ordinary people.
“On 28 February, the US and Israel launched a devastating aerial campaign against Iran, ostensibly targeting military sites and nuclear facilities. In almost three weeks, these strikes have resulted in mounting reports of civilian casualties, including children,” said Sara Hossain, chair of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran. She pointed to the plight of ordinary Iranians “caught between a large-scale military campaign by two countries, the US and Israel, and ongoing repression by their own government in Iran.”
This followed the Iranian ambassador to the UN telling the Security Council that more than 1,300 people had been killed and over 7,000 injured, including a 6-month-old baby. Among the most tragic incidents was the mistaken targeting of a girls’ school in Minab, in southern Iran, struck on the first day of the war, killing 168 people.
That’s only in Iran, not counting what is happening in Lebanon and across the region.
As hard as it is to believe, even wars have laws. They are embodied in the Geneva Conventions, which trace their origins to a Swiss businessman, Henry Dunant. His story is remarkable. In 1859 Dunant witnessed the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino, where roughly 40,000 soldiers were killed or wounded in a single day. Horrified by the suffering, he helped local villagers care for the wounded on both sides of the battlefield, repeating the phrase “Tutti fratelli” – we are all brothers.
Dunant returned to Switzerland and, haunted by what he saw, wrote a short book, A Memory of Solferino. He argued that international agreements were needed to protect the wounded and medical personnel in war. This led to the founding of the International Committee of the Red Cross. In 1864 diplomats from 12 European states met in Geneva and signed the first Geneva Convention, the foundation of modern international humanitarian law.
That first convention focused largely on protecting wounded soldiers and medical workers. The experience of the Second World War transformed the legal framework. The mass killing of civilians – from the Holocaust to the firebombing of cities and the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – forced the international community to understand that civilians had become the principal victims of war. In 1949 the four Geneva Conventions were adopted, creating binding legal protections for civilians, prisoners of war and the wounded.
International humanitarian law is the first thing any humanitarian learns when entering a war zone. Good soldiers are also taught it. Yet when I look at modern battlefields, I struggle to see it upheld. Its protections remain under severe strain. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, more than 120 armed conflicts are currently active worldwide. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that nearly 300 million people now require humanitarian assistance. The UN refugee agency reports that more than 114 million people are forcibly displaced globally – the highest number ever recorded. Children alone make up nearly 40 percent of those displaced.
In practice, that means attacks on hospitals and densely populated areas. It means journalists, doctors and healthcare workers are targeted. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported that 2025 was the deadliest year for journalists since it began tracking data in 1992, with 129 journalists and media workers killed worldwide. Roughly two-thirds of those killed were Palestinian journalists in Gaza. The UN has also documented thousands of grave violations against children in war each year, including killing, maiming, recruitment into armed groups and attacks on schools.
If you want to see what the Geneva Conventions look like when they fail, refer to the destruction of Gaza or the mass graves of El Fasher. Study the systematic rape of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo or the persecution of the Rohingya people. These are not isolated tragedies but part of a global pattern in which civilians increasingly find themselves on the front lines.
The war in Iran is a continuation of this wretched cycle.
The principle of Do No Harm was meant to guide humanitarian actors. But perhaps the lesson of the last century is that it must guide everyone involved in war – soldiers, political leaders, diplomats, journalists and investigators. The Geneva Conventions should be taught in schools, so that children understand early on what war does to ordinary people.
Because if we do not protect the most vulnerable – the elderly, the sick, children, women – we have failed the moral test of our shared humanity.
