Under the Third Geneva Convention, prisoners of war (POW) must be:
- Treated humanely with respect for their persons and their honour
- Able to inform their next of kin and the International Committee of the Red Cross of their capture Allowed to communicate regularly with relatives and receive packages
- Given adequate food, clothing, housing, and medical attention
- Paid for work done and not forced to do work that is dangerous, unhealthy, or degrading
- Released quickly after conflicts end
- Not compelled to give any information except for name, age, rank, and service number
Just a thought. I’d rather be a POW than a homeless disabled person in the USA. I’d have more rights, respect, better support, and better care.
They used the term ‘nongovernmental combatant’ (aka terrorist), because a war can only be between states these combatants were not legally POW and thus had no right whatsoever.
Under law, there’s no such a thing as ‘war’, there are armed conflicts. It is also incorrect that armed conflicts can only happen between states, there are international, non-international conflicts and there are other situations of armed violence. And there are different level of international and human rights law that apply different depending on the type of conflict. There’s also parts of tne resolutions that state that it doesn’t matter what you call them, they’re still POW and you still have to treat them as such. The real problem is that the US hasn’t ratified any of those resolutions and conventions because they fear having any diplomatic oversight, the US has committed so many war crimes that it would take decades of research just to sort out the last half of the 20th century.
Finally, even if international humanitarian law doesn’t apply, then international human rights law still does. But the US plays with rules based international order as their toy because they have the biggest guns and it is hard to front them. And before any of the what abouters comes here to reply, Russia and China are just as bad. No international neocolonialist empire is free of human rights violations.