Saturday, March 11, 2023

POW trial rights

. . . The Third Geneva Convention requires that POWs be assimilated along a few axes to the legal regime governing the armed forces of the detaining State. That is, POWs are subject to the same rules and procedures governing the armed forces of their captors (GC III, art. 82). Note that this POW right to trial by regular military court is, in many instances, a legal disability. It is well understood that trial procedures utilized by military courts often fall short of international due process standards, and typically fall short of the rights recognized in the parallel civilian system. In other words, the “same procedures, same courts” right accorded POWs has ambiguous protective consequences. The important point is that several specific protections in the Third Geneva Convention entitle POWs to be treated like members of the opposing armed forces—a suite of protections clearly linked to the specific requirements of POW status. But the humanitarian value of these protections is unclear—and the content of POW fair trial rights in this context has arguably been overtaken by the legal developments associated with fundamental guarantees.

Derek Jinks, Protecting POWs in Contemporary Conflicts, Mar 10, 2023, an excellent article from West Point's Articles of War series

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