ACSC Quick-Look: LOAC: Time for A Reevaluation? Quick-Look 05-09
Abstract
The recent Taguba Report on prisoner treatment at the Baghdad Central Confinement Facility (a.k.a., Abu Ghraib Prison), while disturbing to our sensibilities, raises some interesting questions. The obvious one is the double standard brought about by the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) a set of rules adhered to by the United States, few other countries, and virtually none of our enemies. While I DO NOT advocate a return to the Thirty Years War custom of burning, raping, and pillaging through an enemy country, perhaps a review of the law and the realities is necessary. Of course civilians at least those who behave themselves should be treated with the utmost courtesy, as should legitimate Prisoners of War. The various Hague and Geneva Conventions provide for this. Enemy fighters are another story, as will be treated below. (It is interesting that fighters is the currently accepted term, as our opponents seldom behave as soldiers ). LOAC's origins can be traced to the post-Treaty of Westphalia period when there arose a general revulsion to the barbarism that had come to characterize European wars. The customary rules embodied in the just war tradition assumed formal trappings in the nineteenth century as western powers attempted to codify just and moral rules to warfare. This was a good idea when combatants shared a similar culture bounded by common moral and ethical values. The twentieth century, however, witnessed a downward slide in acceptance of the laws and customs of war until, today, they are only enforced in a handful of countries that harbor pretensions to holding the moral high ground.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA430953
Entities
People
- Charles T. Kamps
Organizations
- Air Command and Staff College