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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JustTradeEm who wrote (80483)	3/8/2003 7:35:00 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

<How many nations recognized the Taliban as the Afghanistan government > Message 18673637 The relevant part is: Argument: Even members of the Taliban's armed forces should not be entitled to POW status because the Taliban was not recognized as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. HRW response: As Article 4(A)(3) of the Third Geneva Convention makes clear, recognition of a government is irrelevant to the determination of POW status. It accords POW status without qualification to "[m]embers of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the detaining power." That is, the four-part test of Article 4(A)(2) applies only to militia operating independently of a government's armed forces, not to members of a recognized (Article 4(A)(1)) or unrecognized (Article 4(A)(3)) government's armed forces. Thus, whether a government is recognized or not, members of its armed forces are entitled to POW status without the need to meet the four-part test. (emphasis mine) This reading of the plain language of Article 4 is consistent with sound policy and past U.S. practice. As a matter of policy, it would undermine the important protections of the Third Geneva Convention if the detaining power could deny POW status by simply withdrawing or withholding recognition of the adversary government. Such a loophole would swallow the detailed guarantees of the Third Geneva Conventions - guarantees on which U.S. and allied troops rely if captured in combat. This reading is also consistent with past U.S. practice. During the Korean War, the United States treated captured Communist Chinese troops as POWs even though at the time the United States (and the United Nations) recognized Taipei rather than Beijing as the legitimate government of China.