Suddenly, the government of the United States has discovered the virtues of international law. It may bewaging an illegal war against a sovereign state; it may be seeking to destroy every treaty which impedes itsattempts to run the world, but when five of its captured soldiers were paraded in front of the Iraqitelevision cameras on Sunday, Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, immediately complained that "itis against the Geneva Convention to show photographs of prisoners of war in a manner that is humiliating forthem."1