GCIV stipulated the terms and conditions governing the establishment and

functioning of two types of zones: Hospital and Safety Zones and Locality, Article 14;
and Neutralised Zones, Article 15. Although, the GCIV was also adopted on the same
day as GCI on 12 August 1949, there were some significant positive changes in the
substance and procedural aspects of these zones as compared to the Hospital Zones
and Localities. The Hospital and Safety Zones and Locality drew lessons mainly from
the Madrid Zone experience whereas the practical experiences of the Shanghai Zone
and Jerusalem Zone were the most important, in particular the Jerusalem Zone, for the
purposes of the Neutralised Zones.
What were these positive changes?
1. Protection of persons: Only military wounded and sick and medical and
administrative personnel were entitled to get protection under the Hospital Zones and
Localities whereas under the Hospital and Safety Zones and Locality the cover of
protection was extended to civilian wounded and sick and delimited categories of
civilian population, namely, wounded, sick and aged persons, children under 15,
expectant mothers and mothers of children under seven. The main rational to extend
this protection to certain delimited categories of population was that they are persons
who are taking no part in the hostilities and whose weakness makes them incapable of
contributing to the war potential of their country. Furthermore, it is upheld that the
members of the population who live permanently inside the Zones are given the right
to stay there. The Neutralised Zones can give shelter to both civilian and military
wounded and sick, as well as all civilian persons who take no part in hostilities. This
is in marked difference to Article 14 because the whole of the population in the
combat area is authorised to take refuge in these Zones and not only certain categories
as mentioned in Article 14. Thus, scope of protection of persons widened in the
GCIV. It shall be noted that protection is not accorded under Article 14 to the persons
listed, but to the hospital and safety zones and localities as such. The persons
themselves are entitled to protection independently of the refuge zones, which are
merely a means of providing such protection.
2. Article 14 is a comprehensive combination of zones which are at one and the same
time (hospital and safety zones) might be set up, to shelter both civilian and military
wounded and sick, as well as certain categories of the civilian population.
3. Under the Neutralised Zones, the Parties concerned should agree upon the
geographical position, administration, food supply and supervision of the proposed
neutralised zone and shall also make a written agreement which shall fix the
beginning and the duration of the neutralisation of the zone. Article 23 of the GCI and
Article 14 of the GCIV did not elaborate such detail technical guiding principles but
simply referred to the Draft Agreement, which as mentioned above, was of simply
recommendatory nature.
4. Unlike the Hospital and Safety Zones and Localities, where the High Contracting
Parties may establish at their own will the Zones and the Protecting Power or the
ICRC may lend their good offices in this regard, the Neutralised Zone went one step
further. It mentions "[A]ny Party to the conflict may, either direct or through a neutral
State of some humanitarian organisation, propose to the adverse Party to establish, in
the regions where fighting is taking place, neutralised zones....". This clearly means
that a Party to the conflict through a neutral state or a humanitarian organisation with
repute such as ICRC can make proposal to the adverse Party to establish and
administer the Neutralised Zones. The role of neutral power or humanitarian
organisation in the establishment of protection zone was not entertained in the GC I
and Article 14 of the present convention.

As a matter of law, the stark distinction between wounded and sick members of
the armed forces and wounded and sick civilians in the 1949 Geneva Conventions
was abandoned in Additional Protocol I (AP I) of 1977, where reference to “the
wounded and sick” covers both civilians and members of the armed forces.As a
matter of practice, nothing precludes a hospital zone from accommodating wounded
and sick combatants and civilians. It is important to note that admission to hospital
zones and localities must be granted without adverse distinction and therefore also to
enemy wounded and sick, including combatants.
 In addition to “hospital zones”, Article 14 of GC IV also refers to the possibility
of establishing “safety zones and localities”. These are envisaged as areas where
members of the civilian population considered particularly vulnerable and unlikely to
pose a threat to the enemy can seek shelter.

GC IV foresees the establishment of a further type of protected zone: neutralized

zones. Article 15 of GC IV provides that

[a]ny Party to the conflict may, either directly or through a neutral State or some
humanitarian organization, propose to the adverse Party to establish, in the regions
where fighting is taking place, neutralized zones intended to shelter from the effects
of war the following persons, without distinction:

(a)  wounded and sick combatants or non-combatants;

(b)  civilian persons who take no part in hostilities, and who, while they reside
in the zones, perform no work of a military character.

When the Parties concerned have agreed upon the geographical position,
administration, food supply and supervision of the proposed neutralized zone, a
written agreement shall be concluded and signed by the representatives of the Parties
to the conflict. The agreement shall fix the beginning and the duration of the
neutralization of the zone.

The drafters of GC IV envisaged three principal differences between

hospital/safety zones and neutralized zones. The former were intended to be located at
a distance from the combat zone and to constitute a longer-term arrangement for
certain categories of particularly vulnerable civilians. Neutralized zones, instead,
would be in areas of active fighting to provide temporary shelter to wounded and sick
combatants and civilians and the entire civilian population. In practice, on the
occasions when protected zones have been established, they have taken the form of
neutralized zones: located in areas of combat and accommodating both civilians and
the wounded and sick.

Although these provisions are all found in treaties that apply in international
armed conflict, common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions encourages parties to a
non-international armed conflict to enter into special agreements to implement the
Geneva Conventions’ provisions. Some safe zones have been established
in agreementsbetween parties to armed conflicts. Many State military
manuals recognize the notion of safe zones as well as the customary IHL rule that
prohibits directing attacks against such zones.