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Synopsis VII—Combatant and prisoner-of-war status

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2010

Jean de Preux
Jean de Preux*
Affiliation:
Former Legal Adviser at the ICRC
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Extract

Only the members of the armed forces of a Party to a conflict (other than medical personnel, chaplains and military personnel engaged in civil defence) are combatants (Hague Regulations, Art. 1 and 3; P. I, Art. 43 and 67).

Combatants are entitled to take direct part in the hostilities (P. I, Art. 43), i.e. to commit acts of war which are intended by their nature or their purpose to hit specifically the combatants and other military objectives of the enemy armed forces.

Any combatant who falls into the power of an adverse Party is a prisoner of war (P. I, Art. 4).

Type
International Humanitarian Law Synopses
Information
International Review of the Red Cross (1961 - 1997) , Volume 29 , Issue 268 , February 1989 , pp. 42 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 1989

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References

1 Regulations respecting the laws and customs of war on land.—Annex to The Hague Convention of 18 October 1907.

2 The Roman numerals refer to the First (I), the Second (II), the Third (III) and the Fourth (IV) Geneva Conventions (C). The abbreviation P. I stands for Additional Protocol I. The articles are indicated by Arabic numerals.