Detention Operations: Legal Safeguards for Internees

Having acknowledged the essential role that detention operations play in modern armed conflict, this chapter looks at the evolution of the law of international armed conflict provisions on prisoners of war and on civilian internment in armed conflict. After outlining the main provisions of the modern law of international armed conflict on these subjects, the status of persons detained during non-international armed conflicts is discussed and the fundamental guarantees in Article 75 of Protocol I are assessed. Thereafter, the focus shifts to the human rights law rules that apply, respectively, to detention in international and non-international armed conflicts and during internal situations below the armed conflict threshold. The chapter then considers the implications for the law on detention operations of the likely characteristics of future warfare identified elsewhere in this book. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.