THE Red Cross is investigating whether 600 million gamers are violating the Hague and Geneva conventions when they kill and blow stuff up for fun.

Delegates at the 31st International Conference of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Red Crescent raised the concerns over the potential “International Humanitarian Law” violations during a workshop in Geneva.





“Exactly how video games influence individuals is a hotly debated topic, but for the first time, Movement partners discussed our role and responsibility to take action against violations of IHL in video games,” the Red Cross wrote in its daily bulletin.



See below for update on this story



“While National Societies shared their experiences and opinions, there is clearly no simple answer. There is, however, an overall consensus and motivation to take action.”

A spokesperson for ICRC Australia told news.com.au the workshop looked at how games “represented International Humanitarian Law”, which regulates the legal conduct of warfare.

"The aim for the ICRC is that they send the right signals to their hundreds of millions of players by rewarding respect for IHL and penalising violations," the spokesperson said.

The Red Cross said if it finds the conventions have been violated, they may ask game developers to conform to international laws or encourage governments to create laws that regulate the gaming industry, Kotaku reported.



But international law professor at the University of New South Wales Anthony Billingsley told news.com.au the Red Cross risked trivialising the conventions of warfare.

Mr Billingsley also said there is no way the conventions could apply to individuals because they were state-based.

“There are concerns about the blurring of fantasy and reality,” he said.

“There’s a danger of war becoming a spectator sport. People need to realise that this is real stuff.”



The International Committee of the Red Cross is empowered by the Geneva Conventions to protect victims of international and domestic armed conflicts.

Update: After this story was published, Red Cross International said the organisation would not be discussing the matter any further beyond the initial workshop.

Spokesperson Bijan Farnoudi said the Red Cross did not mean to diminish the horror of real world conflict but wanted to explore how to work with the gaming industry to promote its ideals as was already being done in the film industry.



"Serious violations of the laws of war can only be committed in real-life situations, not in video games," Mr Farnoudi told news.com.au.

"The ICRC has expressed its readiness to engage in a dialogue with the video gaming industry in order to explore the place of humanitarian rules in games.

"The ICRC welcomes the fact that certain video games on war-related themes already take the law of armed conflict into account."



