The Fourth Geneva Convention Essay

There is a fine line between taking the enemy captive as part of war and torturing them. I believe that during war it is inevitable that people are going to be held captive as part of war, but there is some sort of humanity that needs to be upheld at the end of the day. There are many international treaties such as the Geneva Convention that many nations are a part of. The idea behind the convention is to make sure that all of the nations are on board with one another on how they are going to treat people. The problem is that most other nations besides the United States have a different mindset of how they operate and how they believe people should be treated in situations of war or high profile people. Most people would like to live in the United States because of all of the rights everyone has here in the country.

“Ideas about human rights have evolved over many centuries. But they achieved strong international support following the Holocaust and World War II. To protect future generations from a repeat of these horrors, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948 and invited states to sign and ratify it”

Article 26: All persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law.

The Geneva Convention and its participants keep all prisoners of war on a uniformed playing field, to prevent

“If the state leads us to wounds or death in battle, we follow as is right; no one can yield or leave his rank, but whether in battle or in a court of law, or in any other place, he must do what his city and his country order him…if he may do no violence to his father or mother, much less may he do violence to his country.'; (Pg. 64)

On U.S. territory and the government argues that they therefore have neither constitutional rights nor the rights guaranteed under the Geneva Convention, the international treaty governing detention during wartime. Basic principles like due process,

the Armed Forces are entitled to POW status if they meet the criteria specified in the treaty.

This paper will explore three separate cases, providing facts about the apprehension and detention of enemy combatants, assessing the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and will explain whether any rights were denied or granted in contrast with each other. Anyone engaging in aggressive or hostile behavior towards a country is held to several political and constitutional legalities as explored in the three following cases.

the United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty guidelines issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, including the Revised Guidelines on Applicable Criteria and Standards Relating to the Detention of Asylum

Torture falls under the category of cruel and unusual punishment, however circumstance can sway the attitude towards the use of torture. The most prevalent example in society, as well as the one used in the article “The Torture Debate” by Philip Rumney and Martin O’Boyle is terrorism. Based on the information presented in the article I agree that a legalized torture system should be developed under specific

Allegedly, the outsourcing of terror suspects to countries such as Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Syria, countries that engage in torture, also occurred. In addition, the International Committee of the Red Cross reported on methods of physical and psychological coercion used to extract information from prisoners in Iraq. These methods include beatings with hard objects, slapping, punching, kicking, prolonged exposure to the sun, and parading detainees naked, sometimes with women’s underwear on their heads. In some cases, threats were issued against the detainees’ families (Ramsey 105). Acts such as these are what determined the necessity of the 1984 convention prohibiting torture, and yet the abuse continues.

The Army and its interconnected units defend the Constitution and our citizens through skilled lethal use of weaponry and civil and combat operations. Organizational units prosper upon solidarity and esprit de corps; without that the Army may not be as effective, rendering constitutional protection an intricate task. Army leaders and soldiers alike develop their own types of experiences and knowledge in skill sets they embrace. Therefore, once combined, experience and knowledge create a professional force that has proven to outlast the strongest enemy. The white paper did stress the effects that a decade of war had on our professional force and leadership’s desire to recommit to a culture of service, responsibilities and behaviors of our profession to restore our professional state to 100%. A definition of human rights is contentious. To avoid controversy, the human rights in this paper are ―thinly conceived. This means the rights that matter most in military operations are a small set of basic human rights consisting of the rights against torture, rape, unjustified killing, arbitrary imprisonment, access to basic subsistence, and personal liberty. This conception of human rights is both consistent with the founding of the United States and defensible as objective moral goods which serve in part as a founding source of the Army

Article 3 states that “Standing armies shall in time be totally abolished” because they are preparations for war which reveal bad faith, cause distrust, and result in an arms race, which in turn, makes the cost of peace more oppressive than the cost of a short offensive war. This ends up putting pressure on nations to instigate real wars in order to save money. Standing armies also degrade the moral rights of individuals in their own persons because soldiers become “mere machines and tools in the hand of another”.

In order to answer this question of rights in captivity, leaders must assess the situation through the lens of an overarching value and a criterion, or means to achieve the value. Executive Order 10631 lays out the duties and responsibilities of US service members in captivity. According to Article III, it is the responsibility of the captured to “continue to resist by all means necessary” (Executive Order No. 10631, 1955). We thus accept this responsibility as the mission of the POW, and ultimately, the value under which we will assess this ethical dilemma.

Jus in Bello falls between two broad categories of discrimination and proportionality. Discrimination and proportionality are key factors that must be considered when engaging in war. For example, Michael Walzer argues, “war should only occur between combatants – soldier to soldier and noncombatants should be shielded from harm”. 2 Essentially, this means during times of conflict only legitimate targets should be targeted, combatants should distinguish against whom is attacked and should not include innocent bystanders. Furthermore, Alexander Moseley states, “In waging war, it is considered unfair and unjust to attack indiscriminately since non-combatants or innocents are deemed to stand outside the field of war”. 3 Unfortunately, this can be difficult at times since it may be hard to distinguish a combatant from a non-combatant especially since they do not always wear a uniform or carry arms, making it impossible to distinguish between them.