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by whose forces they have been captured 5 and their rights and status are regulated in accordance with the 1949 Convention relative to the treatment of prisoners of war. 6 These rules are generally regarded as part of the customary law of armed conflict, as was pointed out in the Nuremberg Judgment , 7 so that its basic principles are binding even upon a state which has not become a party. In
3 ‘Dead, missing or prisoner of war?’ – classifying men lost in action As we have already seen, despite the warnings from the experience of the First World War and the concerns of a number of charitable institutions, when war broke out in September 1939 the authorities concerned found themselves, once again, unprepared for the sheer scale of the burden that administering service allowances in a time of war would entail. By the end of 1939 large numbers of service families were already facing hardship as a result of delayed payments. At the end of May 1940 when
It has been accepted since antiquity that some restraint should be observed during armed conflict. This book examines the apparent dichotomy and introduces any study of the law of armed conflict by considering the nature and legality of war. The purpose of what is known as the law of armed conflict or, more commonly, the law of war is to reduce the horrors inherent therein to the greatest extent possible, bearing in mind the political purpose for which the war is fought, namely to achieve one's policies over one's enemies. The discussion on the history and sources of the law of armed conflict pays most attention to warfare on land because that is the region for which most agreements have been drawn up, although attention has been accorded to both aerial and naval warfare where it has been considered necessary. Traditionally, international law was divided into the law of war and the law of peace, with no intermediate stage between. Although diplomatic relations between belligerents are normally severed once a conflict has commenced, there remain a number of issues, not all of which are concerned with their inter-belligerent relations, which require them to remain in contact. War crimes are violations of the and customs of the law of armed conflict and are punishable whether committed by combatants or civilians, including the nationals of neutral states. The book also talks about the rights and duties of the Occupying Power, civil defence, branches of international law and prisoners of war.
This paper traces the massacres of Jews and Soviet prisoners of war in November 1941 in the city of Bobruisk, Eastern Belarus. Sparked by a current memorial at one of the killing sites, the author examines the historic events of the killings themselves and presents a micro level analysis of the various techniques for murdering and disposing of such large numbers of victims. A contrast will be shown between the types of actions applied to the victims by the German army, SS, police personnel and other local collaborators, reflecting an imposed racial hierarchisation even after their death.
considered an evacuation, the fact that they were then made prisoners of war of Russia makes it sound less plausible ( Zmina , 2022 ). For instance, on 17 May, 264 Ukrainian soldiers were said to have been ‘evacuated’ from the steel plant in Mariupol to a hospital in Novoazovsk or to Olenivka (both in the then so-called Donetsk People’s Republic) – to become prisoners of war. Ukrainian newspapers pointed out that the Russian Defence Ministry had referred to this not as ‘evacuation’ but as ‘surrender
visual editing that reinforced the before-and-after effect: the remedy (relief and care) and the return to the initial state (food, shelter, and education) bring about justice. ICRC movies on prisoners of war thus gave a feeling of ‘weariness’ when prisoners were shown in detention camps, shifting to ‘compassion’ once they returned home ( Clouzot, 1921 : 367–8). Similarly, the spectacle of ‘parentless, homeless, ragged, starving and ill’ children, sometimes ‘piteously begging’, is presented as ‘disconcerting’, ‘sorrowful’, and ‘wholly wrong’, whereas children shown
-established normative framework – the distinction between combatants and non-combatants was theorised by Enlightenment philosophers and legal experts (Grotius, Rousseau and Vatel, most notably). The safeguards granted to prisoners of war by the 1929 Convention were already a part of the 1785 Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Prussia and the United States, and long before the humanitarian conventions were formalised as such, the treatment of POWs had become a key political issue with the
panorama presentation told the story of the Battle of Solferino and, through visual effects, made the ghost of Dunant wander through the museum’s space. Once the presentation was over, the screen parted and opened a view of a sculpture of Dunant writing ‘A Memory of Solferino’. In another area the display showcased a six million card-index compiled by the International Prisoners of War Agency (IPWA). There was also a 20-screen video wall that transmitted satellite pictures of
6 ‘By ourselves, for ourselves’ – unofficial information, self-help and charities Not surprisingly, in the light of the shortcomings of official systems of notification detailed in the previous chapter, large numbers of prisoner of war families turned to charitable and ‘self–help’ groups for information and support. In general, all war charities were governed by the regulations laid down in the War Charities Act of 1916.1 However, although the Charity Commissioners also showed interest in other classes of charities such as societies incorporated under the
, sailors and airmen who had fallen into enemy hands, while also enduring long separation, had also contended with much harsher living conditions and, in the case of those held by the Japanese, almost total isolation from news of the outside world. Moreover, their position as prisoners of war and therefore as military failures precluded their being afforded the same status as their comrades still on active service. In all, 4,653,000 men joined the British armed services between 1939 and 1945, of whom an estimated 55 per cent were married, giving a total of somewhere in