In the most violent times, during a war prisoners were killed, kept or sold as slaves. While the concept of prisoner of war and their rights emerged in the seventeenth century, it was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that these rights began to be specified and an international definition attempted. The Geneva Conventions of 1929 and 1949 finally set the standards for the definition and treatment of prisoners of war. This article presents how, despite all international regulations, doubts over the status of prisoners of war still arise every time the world deals with an international conflict and how issues relating to the determination of the status should be resolved according to the Geneva Conventions.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.