The Geneva Convention's Influence on the Treatment of Prisoners of War

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What is the Geneva Convention?

The Geneva Convention was created to take care of prisoners of war. It contains rules about the treatment and rights of prisoners of war during captivity. A quote told by Michael Ignatieff, Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry about the Geneva convention: “...our species is one, and each of the individuals who compose it are entitled to equal moral consideration.” It sets out:

 All prisoners receive a respectful treatment.

 All prisoners should be protected against violence.

 All prisoners can keep their possessions or personal effects, except for military equipment.

 Prisoners of war should be evacuated as soon as possible from the fighting zone.

 They need to have sanitation that is sufficient enough to prevent epidemics.

 Prisoners of war should get the same amounts of food and drinks which soldiers from the host country also receive.

 They should be getting medical care when needed.

 When they are caught they need to tell their rank and name but they can keep the rest of their personal lives secret.

 If a prisoner of war tries to escape arms may be used against him.

But who actually are the prisoners of war? The prisoners of war are the people who no longer take part in hostilities, this can be soldier, shipwrecked people but also sick and wounded civilians. There have been four Geneva conventions over time and the first dealt with the treatment of wounded and sick armed forces in the field this convention was signed in 1864, the second convention helped wounded, sick and shipwrecked members of the armed forces at sea this was signed in 1906, the third convention dealt with the treatment of prisoners of war during conflicts which...

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...0.32% of the total population. Bill Barrett an American journalist described the concentration camp of Dachau where a few British soldiers were kept as: "There were about a dozen bodies in the dirty boxcar, men and women alike. They had gone without food so long that their dead wrists were broomsticks tipped with claws. These were the victims of a deliberate starvation diet." Which describes well how the living conditions in such a concentration camp were. There were a few occasions were British soldiers were immediately shot to death but this only happened in 0.03% of all the cases, when this happened it was probably because a soldier shot because he felt threatened. So the British soldiers had quite acceptable rights but the way you would be treated would depend on whether you were sent to a prisoner of war camp or whether you were send to a concentration camp.

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