On 12 December 1977, at Bern, the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), was opened for signature. It had been adopted at Geneva on 8 June 1977 by the Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law applicable in Armed Conflicts. The Conference’s Final Act: 10 June 1977. Article 92: this Protocol shall be open for signature by the Parties to the Conventions six months after the signing of the Final Act and will remain open for a period of twelve months. Six authentic texts: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish (Article 102). Depositary: the Swiss Federal Council. Registration: UNTS I-17512, volume 1125.

Article 1(1): the High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for this Protocol in all circumstances. Article 1(3): this Protocol, which supplements the 1949 Conventions, shall apply in the situations referred to in Article 2 common to those Conventions. Article 1(4): those situations include armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist régimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination, as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations. This is not a treaty recognizing any particular situation; it is a protocol of humanitarian law. Protocol II, relating to non-international armed conflicts, is a separate instrument.

Article 48: the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and shall direct their operations only against military objectives. Article 51(2): the civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Article 90: an International Fact-Finding Commission, as a fact-finding mechanism. 102 articles and two annexes.

Article 93: this Protocol shall be ratified as soon as possible; instruments deposited with the Swiss Federal Council. Article 94: open for accession by any Party to the Conventions which has not signed it. Article 95(1): this Protocol shall enter into force six months after two instruments of ratification or accession have been deposited. Entry into force: 7 December 1978. Article 95(2): for each Party thereafter, six months after the deposit of its own instrument. Article 99: denunciation; if the denouncing Party is engaged in conflict, the denunciation shall not take effect before the end of the armed conflict.

The Federal Palace in Bern, the city of the opening for signature, not the signing room. Wikimedia Commons, free licence.

For context: Protocol I. The text: UNTS I-17512, Protocol additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (Protocol I).