Prisoners of war retain their full civil capacity and the Detaining Powermay not restrict, either within or outside its own territory, the exerciseof the rights such capacity confers, except in so far as captivity requires.In practice, it is primarily in the prisoner of war’s country of origin ordomicile that they may need to execute important legal documents, as it isthere that they are likely to have their family and their interests orprofessional relationships. The documents include those relating tomarriage, divorce and separation, children and the sale, mortgage ortransfer of land or other property, whether movable or immovable. Theseexamples suggest that the longer the conflict lasts the more important thisarticle might become in practice.

Article 126 provides for an in situ (on site)supervision mechanism for scrutinizing compliance with the rights andobligations governing the protection of prisoners of war. Supervision may beundertaken by two actors: the Protecting Powers, where such are appointedaccording to Article 8 (or its substitutes appointed according to Article10), and the ICRC. This provision recognizes the supervisory role the ICRChad already been playing prior to 1949 on the basis of its right ofhumanitarian initiative. The ICRC’s right to access all persons detained inrelation to an international armed conflict is today recognized ascustomary.

The Detaining Power has the responsibility to maintain security, orderand discipline in prisoner-of-war camps. This is necessary to avoid actsof violence against the guards or other prisoners and to preventprisoners of war from escaping and resuming hostilities. Maintainingorder and discipline within the camp also helps the Detaining Power tofulfil its obligation to protect prisoners of war in accordance with theConvention.

Article 98 sets out minimum standards for the treatment ofprisoners of war undergoing disciplinary confinement. In combinationwith Article 97, which lays down minimum standards regarding thepremises in which prisoners may be confined, Article 98 provides‘the essential safeguards to be accorded to prisoners of war whileserving disciplinary sentences’. While the first paragraph ofArticle 98 refers explicitly to prisoners of war undergoingconfinement, the other paragraphs refer more generally to all formsof disciplinary punishment. It can be assumed, however, that theseprovisions were also included primarily regarding confinement, giventhe increased vulnerability of prisoners of war in suchcircumstances.

The third chapter of the book analyzes the second moment in this genealogy of modern comparative law: comparative legislative studies. This second lapse in the construction of comparative law has its primary development in the nineteenth century. In this chapter, in particular, I examine Henry Summer Maine's work. The specialized literature recognizes him as another of the founding fathers of the discipline. The analysis of Maine's work revolves around three axes. In the first, the most important, I examine the concept of evolution as progress that the author is committed to. The historical method and the comparative method are the instruments that, for Maine, allow for describing and examining the legal and political evolution of humanity. For Maine, Europe is the locus of progress while India, as a paradigmatic representation of the Orient and of an undifferentiated "rest of the world," is the locus of barbarianism. The line that contains history is also occupied by a dual conceptual geography: on one hand, modern Indo-Europe and barbarian Indo-Europe, on the other, modern and barbarian Indo-Europe (that have a common culture) and the rest of the uncivilized world. In the narrative that Maine constructs, this spatial and temporal axis is also inhabited by particular subjectivities: the modern European, the Indian (as a representative of the oriental) and the individual from the savage rest of the world.