Article 136 establishes the period during which the Convention is open forsignature and indicates who is entitled to sign it. The other threeConventions contain a similar provision.

Article 127 aims to ensure the widest possible dissemination of the ThirdGeneva Convention by the High Contracting Parties within their respectivecountries, among both their armed forces and their entire population. Asimilar provision on dissemination is included in all four GenevaConventions.

Article 90 deals with the duration of disciplinary punishments andthe timelines for their execution. It sets the maximum duration ofany disciplinary punishment awarded under Article 89 at 30 days andspecifies that this maximum also applies if a prisoner of war issentenced at the same time for several disciplinary offences. Thearticle further prescribes a maximum period of one month between thesentencing of a prisoner and the execution of the punishment andrequires a minimum of three days between the execution ofconsecutive disciplinary punishments. Article 90 also provides thatany period of confinement awaiting the hearing of a disciplinaryoffence or the award of disciplinary punishment must be deductedfrom the eventual punishment.

Article 15 obliges the Detaining Power to provide free of charge for themaintenance of prisoners of war and for the medical attention required by theirstate of health. This obligation represents one of the most important aspects ofthe protection afforded to prisoners of war under the Third Convention.

Article 106 provides that prisoners of war facing judicialproceedings must benefit, in the same manner as the members of thearmed forces of the Detaining Power, from the right of appeal orpetition from any sentence pronounced against them. The right toappeal is an essential element of a fair judicial process and aregular facet of domestic penal legislation and rules.

Escape gives rise to a dilemma between two contrasting ideas. Thefirst is that attempts to escape may be viewed as a demonstration ofpatriotism and of the most honourable intentions, and not as acrime. According to this precept, prisoners of war have a right, amoral duty, and sometimes, under the law of the Power on which theydepend, even a legal obligation to escape. The second idea is thatan attempt to escape is a punishable breach of discipline vis-à-visthe Detaining Power, which it is under a strong obligation toprevent. These contrasting ideas have been described as the ‘paradoxof escape’, which is at the core of the legal framework onprisoner-of-war escapes.

Article 20 outlines the conditions in which the evacuation of prisoners ofwar from the combat zone to safe camps must be carried out. It supplementsArticle 19, which requires such evacuation to take place as soon as possibleafter the prisoners have fallen into the power of the enemy.