Are the Geneva Conventions Out of Date?

The so-called war on terrorism has prompted calls for revisions to the 1949 Geneva Conventions on armed conflict and the 1977 Additional Protocols thereto in order to address terrorist-related warfare, but I believe that claims for a major reform of international humanitarian law are primised on a variety of misconceptions of that law. The following essay is a revised version of one that orginally appeared at The Crimes of War Website (www.crimesofwar.org) as part of a debate on "Rethinking the Geneva Conventions."