Article 33 is the centrepiece of the regime for the retention ofmilitary medical and religious personnel (covered by Article 24 of theFirst Convention) and staff of voluntary aid societies employed on thesame duties (covered by Article 26 of the First Convention) ininternational armed conflicts. Article 33 needs to be read together withArticles 28, 30 and 31 of the First Convention, where retention based onArticle 28 is contemplated as an exception to the rule, set out inArticle 30, requiring the return of such personnel to the Party to theconflict to which they belong. The special treatment to which qualifyingpersonnel are entitled under this provision is designed to ensure thatprisoners of war receive the necessary medical and spiritual care. Theparts of Article 33 pertaining to the status, treatment and facilitiesdue to retained medical personnel and chaplains appear almost word forword in Article 28 of the First Convention.

Legal Barbarians has two general objectives that intersect and complement each other. On one hand, the book seeks to describe and analyze how modern comparative law has contributed to the construction of modern subjectivities. On the other hand, it seeks to describe and analyze how this field of law has contributed to creating conceptual geographies and ways of understanding history that have influenced the legal conscience of individuals directly or indirectly, implicitly or explicitly, linked to enlightened modernity.

Article 41 obliges States to post in every camp the text of the presentConvention in the prisoners’ own language, together with anyregulations, orders or notices relating to the conduct of prisoners in alanguage they understand. These obligations are an expression of theright of prisoners of war to be informed of the rules and regulationspertaining to their captivity and an implementation of the obligation onall Parties to disseminate the Convention as widely as possible.

Article 87 deals with the type of penalties that can be imposed onprisoners of war during their captivity. It reflects the principleof assimilation between prisoners of war and members of the armedforces of the Detaining Power. Prisoners of war may only besentenced to a given penalty if that penalty is also foreseen formembers of the armed forces of the Detaining Power who havecommitted the same act.

As was the case generally with the provisions on transfer of prisonersof war after their arrival in camp (Chapter VIII), negative experiencesduring the Second World War inspired Article 47. The prohibitory natureof the present article is clear and is best illustrated by comparing itwith its predecessor in the 1929 Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War,which stated that, ‘[u]nless the course of military operations demandsit, sick and wounded prisoners of war shall not be transferred if theirrecovery might be prejudiced by the journey’. Where the 1929 textallowed for an imperative operational exception to this prohibition, thepresent article permits transfers detrimental to the condition ofwounded or sick prisoners of war or of prisoners exposed to nearbyhostilities only where the safety of theprisoners themselves requires it or where prisoners face greater dangerfrom combat by remaining in place than by being moved. The provision wasadopted unanimously.

Article 68 deals with claims for compensation of prisoners of war. Theprovision is mostly of a procedural rather than substantive nature, apart,however, from the obligation of the Detaining Power to replace personaleffects that the prisoners may need while in captivity. Claims forcompensation are to be referred, not to the Detaining Power, but to thePower on which the prisoners depend. The ultimate settlement is subject toan arrangement between the Parties to the conflict pursuant to the secondsentence of Article 67.

In the first chapter, I explore the relationship between narrative and identity. More precisely, in this chapter, I argue (i) that narratives construct and give unity to individual and collective identities; (ii) that modern law, understood as part of modern culture and not as its consequence, constructs a narrative that has contributed to the creation of the modern subject – a narrative that is built around the conceptual opposition "subject of law/legal barbarian"; and (iii) that comparative law has played a central role in the formation of this conceptual opposition. Comparative law has been fundamental for forming the legal “self” and "other" of modernity.