d. Your U.S. military ID card is your GC card. NOTE: Categories are I toV, which corresponds to respective rank. See Art.60, GPW.
IV. EPW CAMP ADMINISTRATION AND DISCIPLINEg6A. Responsibility (Art. 12, GPW).- The State (Detaining Power) is responsible for the treatment of prisoners.
Prisoners of war are not in the power of the individual or military unit that
captured them. They are in the hands of the State itself which the individ~~als
or military units are only agentsg7
B. Locations.- Land only (Art 22, GPW). However, during the Falklands War the British
temporarily housed Argentine EPWs on ship while in transit to repatriation. - Not near military targets (Art 23, GPW)." During the Falklands War, several
Argentine EPWs were accidentally killed while moving ammunition away
from their billets. - Prisoners of war must be assembled into camps based upon their nationality,
language and customs (Art. 22, GPW).
a. Generally, cannot segregate prisoners based on religion or ethnic
backgro~nd.~~However, segregation by these beliefs may be required86 For a historical recount of some of the most horrific treatment of conditions faced by POWs in any war, see
GAVANDAWS, PRISONERS OF THE JAPANESE: POWS OF WORLD WAR 11 IN THE PACIFIC (1 994). Cowpare
conditions US. POWs have historically suffered with the treatment US. forces have historically afforded their
prisoners. See, e.g., Jack Fincher, By Convention, the enemy within never did without, SMITHSONIAN(June
1995), at 126 (an account of U.S. treatment of German POWs during World War 11) and Gary Max, Panama
prison camp no Stalag 17, CHI. TRIB., Jan. 8, 1990.
87 Pictet, supra note 2, at 128-29.
Iraq used U.S. and allied POWs during the Persian Gulf War as human shields in violation of Art. 19 & 23,
GPW. See Iraqi Mistreatment ofPOWs, DEP'TOF STATE DISPATCH, Jan. 28, 1991, at 56 (Remarks by State
Department Spokesman Margaret Tutwiler). See also DEP'TOF DEF., FINAL REPORTTO CONGRESS:
CONDUCT OF THE PERSIAN GULF WAR (April 1992), at 619 -620.
" Art.34, GPW. One of the most tragic events of religions discrimination by a detaining power for religious
reasons was the segregation by the Nazis of Jewish American Prisoners of War. Several Jewish American
soldiers were segregated from their fellow Americans and sent to slave labor camps where "they were beaten,
stared and many literally worked to death." MITCHELL G. BARD, FORGOTTEN VICTIMS: THE ABANDONMENT
OF AMERICANSIN HITLER'S CAMPS (1994). See also Trial of Tanaka Chuichi and Two Others in UNITED
NATIONSWAR CRIMES COMMISSION, XI LAWREPORTSOF WAR CRIMES TRIALS 62 (1949) (convicting
Japanese prison guards, in part, for intentionally violating the religious practices of Indians of the Sikh faith).