The Third Geneva Convention governs the treatment of prisoners of war, effective from the moment of capture. This includes obligations to treat them humanely at all times. It is a war crime to willfully kill, mistreat, or torture POWs, or to willfully cause great suffering, or serious injury to body or health.
Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention.
Examples of war crimes include intentionally targeting civilian populations, torture, taking hostages, rape and other sexual violence, enlisting or conscripting children, and intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art and other cultural aspects of society.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has said that sharing such videos of POWs very much falls under the Geneva Conventions' prohibition. The ICRC and other human rights groups have reiterated this repeatedly in recent days.
POWs cannot be prosecuted for taking a direct part in hostilities. Their detention is not a form of punishment, but only aims to prevent further participation in the conflict.
The Third Geneva Convention of 1949 (the Prisoners of War Convention) contains no provisions specifically regulating the circum- stances in which prisoners of war can be photographed.
Some examples of prohibited acts include: murder; mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; taking of hostages; intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population; intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historical monuments or ...
Principles of the laws of war
Military necessity, along with distinction, proportionality, humanity (sometimes called unnecessary suffering), and honor (sometimes called chivalry) are the five most commonly cited principles of international humanitarian law governing the legal use of force in an armed conflict.
Genocide. Genocide is considered one of the most severe crimes against humanity. It means the deliberate attempt to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.
Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.
The death penalty is retained only for treason. The Constitution of 1978 abolished the death penalty except for crimes under the Military Penal Code in time of war. A new Military Penal Code, which came into force in 1986, retains the death penalty as an optional punishment for a wide range of wartime offences.
False surrender
It is a war crime under Protocol I of the Geneva Convention. False surrenders are usually used to draw the enemy out of cover to attack them off guard, but they may be used in larger operations such as during a siege. Accounts of false surrender can be found relatively frequently throughout history.
As a general rule, POWs must be released and repatriated without delay at the end of active hostilities. But some factors like a POW's health, parole policies, and special agreements among states can lead to earlier release.
These include prohibition on exploding or expanding bullets (1868), expanding bullets (1899), poison and asphyxiating gases (1925), biological weapons (1972), chemical weapons (1993), munitions using undetectable fragments (1980), blinding laser weapons (1995), anti-personnel mines (1997), cluster munitions (2008), ...
No. The flamethrower was commonly used by all signers of the various Geneva Conventions and never banned. They just outlived their usefulness on the battlefield, since we now have more accurate ways of taking out tanks & bunkers.
Military operations other than war (MOOTW) focus on deterring war, resolving conflict, promoting peace, and supporting civil authorities in response to domestic crises.
Crimes against humanity, such as genocide or the Nanking massacre were "Class-C" crimes while the more usual war crimes, such as shooting helpless prisoners, were "Class-B" war crimes.
The Axis powers (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan) were some of the most systematic perpetrators of war crimes in modern history.
During modern-day armed conflicts, looting is prohibited by international law, and constitutes a war crime.
2551 Article 42 limits the use of weapons against prisoners of war to extreme cases. Nevertheless, if prisoners succeed in escaping, they become targetable again under the rules on the conduct of hostilities, and the limits imposed by Article 42 no longer apply.
Thompson spent the next nine years (3,278 days) as a prisoner of war, first at the hands of the Viet Cong in the South Vietnam forests, until he was moved in 1967 to the Hanoi prison system. During his captivity, he was tortured, starved, and isolated from other American POWs.
Under Article 47 of Protocol I (Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts) it is stated in the first sentence "A mercenary shall not have the right to be a combatant or a prisoner of war".