The laws of war need to be redrawn by the international community, John Reid, defence secretary, will say today, to eliminate the causes of legal anomalies, of which the US detention centre on Guantanamo Bay is the glaring example.

Talking to the Royal United Service Institute for Defence and Security Studies, Mr Reid will argue that the Geneva Conventions, signed in 1949, were written for a world of state-to-state conflict and fail to meet all the needs of today's battles against terrorist groups and insurgents.