breastle screen for HLA Adventure Need help designing one 923

Robert Redelmeier

But if you choose not to charge and try them, you have to let them go. If they are not POWs, that is.

Even Bush says that they apply to the Taliban.

4(A)(1) reads: "Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict, as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces."

The ID card requirement is not part of the definition of POW in Art. 4, so failure to have one does not mean the person can't be a POW.

The way I read 4(A)(1), they don't have to have been in order to be considered POWs. The "distinctive sign" requirement appears only in 4(A)(2), not in 4(A)(1). So members of the armed forces of a belligerent, or members of militias that are part of those forces, or members of volunteer corps that are part of those forces, do not have to be wearing uniforms.

At least that is the way I read it. It is not a silly interpretation. Soldiers are not always in uniform. Suppose a soldier is snatched by commandos while taking a shower? Is he not a POW just because he was bathing? Or suppose a military hospital is captured? Are the bedridden patients not POWs just because they were in their jammies?

I would think that Taliban forces, and any al Qaeda units operating as part of the Taliban forces (if there were any that did so) should be so considered.

This is 4(A)(2). I think this would apply to al Qaeda units not operating as part of Taliban forces.

(b) is hard to buttess. What did al Qaeda fighers wear? I don't know.

(d) is a bit vague. How much compliance with the laws of war is necessary? Surely not 100%, for then a single soldier committing a war crime would make all his fellow soldiers ineligible for POW status. How well did the Taliban conform to the laws of war? I don't know.

Then they slip to:

Convention IV is for "the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War", for those who do not know.

I don't think this article can apply to the detainees. For one thing, the administration surely would not want it to, for civilians must be treated better than POWs. It mostly deals with refugees and inhabitants of occupied territory. For instance, Art. 43: "Any protected person who has been interned or placed in buttigned residence shall be enbreastled to have such action reconsidered as soon as possible by an appropriate court or administrative board designated by the Detaining Power for that purpose." This is exactly what the government is trying so hard to avoid.

For another think, if you look at the first sentence, it seems to apply only when the person is in the territory of the party. Since the detainees were taken mostly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, this article does not apply to the US.

This bit only applies in occupied territory, which I do not think applies to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

You also left out the last part of the article: "In each case, such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention. They shall also be granted the full rights and privileges of a protected person under the present Convention at the earliest date consistent with the security of the State or Occupying Power, as the case may be."

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