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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2010
At the International Colloquium held by the International Institute of Humanitarian Law, at Sanremo last September, a paper was submitted on military instructions concerning the treatment of prisoners in situations arising from guerrilla warfare. In view of the importance of the subject and of the interesting references made to history, we are publishing the introduction and conclusion of this study, which will later appear in the official records of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law, as well as some of the historical examples given by the author. (Ed.)
1 See International Review, 11 1971.Google Scholar
2 cf. British Manual, Part I, 1956, p. 1 Google Scholar, and U.S. Field Manual, 1956, p. 3.Google Scholar
3 Obviously there is no lack of synonyms for the term guerrilla: people's war, war of resistance, revolutionary war, insurrectionary war, subversive war, etc.
4 Our translation: “Out of the goodness of his heart, the magnanimous King of Bavaria ordered the imperial French and royal Bavarian generals to spare his subjects in Tyrol and to remind them of their duty only with kindness. But as all their efforts were in vain, the great Emperor of France, Defender of the Faith, has this day, 15 May, ordered that any Tyrolese carrying arms shall be arrested, shot and hanged; that where a soldier is found dead in the Bann or in a village, Kreis or Landgericht, the entire valley or Bann or the entire Gericht shall be burned within twenty-four hours, and that the noblest of them, even if not found to be carrying arms, shall be hanged from the nearest tree.”
5 Our translation: “Any prisoner who demands to be treated as a prisoner of war must prove that he is a French soldier by submitting an order issued by a lawful authority and addressed to him, whereby he was called up to serve with the colours and incorporated in a military unit organized by the French government.”
6 Our translation: “Proclamation. The commander-in-chief of the 11th German Army by this order again proclaims that any individual not a member of the regular French army or of the mobile national guard who is found to be in possession of a weapon, whether he goes by the name of franc-tireur or under any other description, if caught committing a hostile act against our troops, shall be considered a traitor and hanged or shot without any form of trial. By order of the commander-in-chief of the 11th Army, The Chief of the General Staff.”
7 Schmidt, Jürg H., Die völkerrechtliche Stellung der Partisanen im Kriege, Zürich, 1956, p. 36.Google Scholar
8 The Laws of War on Land. Manual published by the Institute of International Law, Oxford Session, 1880.Google Scholar
9 Schmid, op. cit. pp. 39 and 40. Powers, R. D., “Guerillas and the Laws of War”, U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, 1963, p. 85.Google Scholar
10 See Ford, J. W., “Resistance Movements and International Law”, International Review of the Red Cross, Geneva, 10, 11 and 12 1967, and 01 1968.Google Scholar
11 Here we must pay tribute to the remarkable set of documents compiled by Madame P. Pierson-Mathy (from which these texts are quoted), in Cahier de Documentation No. III (L'application du droit de la guerre et des principes humanitaires dans les opérations de guérilla). This was supplied to the delegates attending the Conference on Humanitarian Law and Armed Conflicts, held in Brussels from 28 to 30 January 1970.
12 Schmid, , op. cit., p. 167.Google Scholar
13 It prohibits, besides summary sentences and executions:
“(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) taking of hostages;
(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.”
14 cf. Execution of eighty German prisoners by the FFI (Forces françaises de l'intérieur) in 1944 (Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on its Activities during the Second World War, Vol. I, p. 523); execution of three French prisoners by the ALN (Armée de libération nationale) in Algeria in May 1958 (ICRC Annual Report for 1958, p. 10); and execution of two United States prisoners by the FNL (Front national de libération) in South Vietnam.
15 Captured carrying arms.
16 Our translation: “A de facto situation favouring a group of non-privileged persons has thus proved more powerful than an ancient practice of the law of war”. Walter Meier, Kriegsvölkerrecht und moderne Konfliktsformen. Ergebnisse einer Konferenz in Dublin, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 12.6.70, Mittagsausgabe, No. 267, p. 3.Google Scholar
17 cf. Conference of Government Experts on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts (Geneva, 24 May-12 June 1971), Document VI, Rules Applicable in Guerrilla Warfare, documentation submitted by the ICRC, Geneva, January 1971, 55 + 17 pp.
18 cf. Reports of the Secretary-General of the United Nations on “Respect for Human Rights in Armed Conflicts” submitted to the twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth sessions of the United Nations General Assembly (documents A/7720, A/8052 and A/8370).
