223 Chema Suárez Serrano Journalism in the armed conflict of the 21st century:... statements, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which considers the information passed on by war reporters to be useful to the public interest and to judicial enquiries themselves: «The information uncovered by war correspondents has on more than one occasion provided important leads for the investigators of this Tribunal. In view of these reasons, the Appeals Chamber considers that war correspondents do serve a public interest».55 Along the same lines, the International Criminal Court, in the case of the Prose-cutor against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, cites a news report broadcast by the television channel France 2 in order to support their argument about the recruitment of child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.56 We are confronted with another of the functions that journalists serve in the con-flicts of the 21st century, which goes beyond simply reporting, that is to say that of supplying material so that international organisations and judicial investigations have a more precise insight into what is occurring. Resolution 2673 (1970) of the UN Ge-neral Assembly57 had already commended reporters for their contribution towards its functions (and set a precedent for the inclusion of an article exclusively dedicated to war correspondents in the text of the Additional Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conven-tions of 197758) and in recent years, this position has gained ground. The data gathered by the UN regarding conflict areas have frequently been obtained thanks to journalist sources, which is typically the case in the Israeli-Palestinian problem.59 The Security Council has reiterated the important role that journalists play in the protection of civilians and in conflict prevention, «by acting as an early warning mechanism in identifying and reporting potential situations that could result in genocide, war cri-mes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.» 60 In the same way, the media (as a vehicle to exercise freedom of expression) and journalists (as those who facilitate this) have received the indubitable backing of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights: 55 ICTY, Case No.: IT-99-36-AR73.9. Prosecutor v. Radoslav Grdjanin Momir Talic, Decision on interlocu-tory appeal, 11 Dec. 2002, para. 36. http://www.icty.org/x/cases/brdanin/acdec/en/randall021211.htm. 56 International Criminal Court No.: ICC-01/04-01/06 (17 July 2009) paragraph. 18. http://www.icc-cpi.int/ iccdocs/doc/doc713212.pdf. 57 Resolution 2673 (XXV) of the UN General Assembly of 9 December 1970: https://documents-dds-ny. un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/349/38/IMG/NR034938.pdf?OpenElement. 58 Article 79.1 of the Additional Protocol 1 sets out verbatim: «1. Journalists engaged in a professional mission in an area of armed conflict are civilians in the sense of Article 50 paragraph 1.» https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ ihl/INTRO/470. 59 What’s in blue is a publication that reports on the timetable of work of the UN Security Council. In April 2016, upon the announcement of an open debate on the Israeli-Palestine conflict, it stated: «according to media reports, Palestinians have killed 28 Israelis and two US citizens in knife, car-ramming and gun attacks, and Israe-li forces have killed at least 190 Palestinians, 129 of whom Israel says were assailants.» http://www.whatsinblue. org/2016/04/middle-east-open-debate-with-secretary-general-briefing.php#. 60 UN Security Council, Resolution S/RES/2222 (2015) http://www.un.org/es/comun/docs/index. asp?symbol=S/RES/2222(2015)&referer=/spanish/&Lang=E. http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee
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