Talk:Unlawful combatant

Private military personnel

Are members of private military companies lawful or unlawful combatants? Are they classified as mercenaries or as legitimate military? Does it depend on whether the members or their company are from a country which is a party to the war? Jim Michael (talk) 23:24, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Enemy combatant

I removed "enemy combatant" from the first sentence. An enemy combatant is an enemy engaged in combat with friendly combatants. As such the enemy combatant is usually a privileged combatant and not an unprivileged one.

That some members of the Bush administration could not tell the difference between an enemy combatant who fight within the laws of war and an "enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, [is a familiar example] of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoners of war" (Ex parte Quirin); is not reason why this article should follow that administration's lead. -- PBS (talk) 20:56, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Revert 16 Feb 2021: SilverbackNet

SilverbackNet

Hi, I saw you reverted my edit. I asked for someone to check it, could you please explain the revert? I've gone over it with fresh eyes and I'm certain I got it right. I've reverted it back to my edit for now until someone can explain why its wrong

For anyone else I've pasted the text below, the underlined word in bold is what I removed and was subsequently reverted.

The assumption that such a category as unlawful combatant exists is not contradicted by the findings of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Celebici Judgment. The judgment quoted the 1958 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) commentary on the Fourth Geneva Convention: Every person in enemy hands must be either a prisoner of war and, as such, be covered by the Third Convention; or a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention. Furthermore, "There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law", because in the opinion of the ICRC, "If civilians directly engage in hostilities, they are considered 'unlawful' or 'unprivileged' combatants or belligerents (the treaties of humanitarian law do not expressly contain these terms). They may be prosecuted under the domestic law of the detaining state for such action".

My understanding is that the sources say that there are only two categories: lawful combatant and civilian. It explicitly says "there is no intermediate status". This would contradict the "assumption that such a category as unlawful combatant exists".

Please explain the revert here before changing it back. If anyone else has feedback it would be appreciated!

Permanent link: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Unlawful_combatant&oldid=990494473

John wiki 16:06, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Rereading, the final line says both "nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law" along with "in the opinion of the ICRC, "If civilians directly engage in hostilities, they are considered 'unlawful'..." Ultimately, it's not just that one opening word that's contradictory, it's the content of the two back-to-back quotes that conflict. There can't be a right or wrong summary in that case without sorting that conflict out. SilverbackNet ^talk 23:16, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Ah ok I get where you're coming from, appears that it was badly written in the first place! Key is the first sentence, "The assumption that such a category as unlawful combatant exists". While they affirm that a combatant may theoretically be unlawful, they go on to clarify that an unlawful combatant is legally the same as a civilian, and thus is not a discrete category, see: "there is no intermediate status". The source is written in the context of terrorists being denied rights on the pretext of being unlawful combatants, and therefore being treated as a third category, aka neither prisoners of war or criminals. I'll rewrite it to remove any ambiguity, I'll replace the last quote with one a bit less misleading.

John wiki 12:43, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

What is the difference between an unlawful combatant and a murderer?

I mean, combat means violence, and murder is an act of violence, so what is the difference? 100.16.152.25 (talk) 19:10, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

many sources misrepresented or misinterpreted

To assume good faith I should say misinterpreted, but it could be either. The whole article implies that "unlawful combatants" are not given the protections that a separate category of "lawful combatants" are entitled to, but for the first few sources I've tried to verify they DON'T say this, what they are actually saying is that this class do not have the protections of CIVILIANS.

International law doesn't have a separate set of rights for lawful and unlawful combatants, the categories are protected (civilian and some military, such military medical workers) add combatants.

I suspect this might be a problem throughout the article, but I have not fixed any of it yet, I'm hoping to get a bit of help verifying the sources. Whether you agree with my overall impression of the page or not, please try to add quotes to the sources where needed, if they use "cite web" or similar please add a field "quote =" and if they don't use templates just write the word quote and put the relevant sentence in quotation marks.

LagoonGoose (talk) 02:01, 7 September 2024 (UTC)