GC: n.
S: ICRC – https://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law/protected-persons/prisoners-war-detainees (last access: 11 November 2014); EncBrit – http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/477235/prisoner-of-war-POW (last access: 11 November 2014).
N: 1. – prisoner (n): person in prison, captive person, “late 14c. (earlier “a jailer,” mid -13c., but this did not survive Middle English), form Old French prisonier “captive, hostage” (12c., Modern Frencah prisonnier), from prisoun. Captives taken in war have been callsed prisoners since mid-14c.
– of (prep.): Old English of, unstressed form of æf (prep., adv.) “away, away from,” from Proto-Germanic af (cognates: Old Norse af, Old Frisian af, of “of,” Dutch af “off, down,” German ab “off, from, down”), from PIE apo- “off, away”
– war (n): late Old English wyrre, werre “large-scale military conflict,” from Old North French werre “war” (Old French guerre “difficulty, dispute; hostility; fight, combat, war;” Modern French guerre), from Frankish werra, from Proto-Germanic werz-a- (cognates: Old Saxon werran, Old High German werran, German verwirren “to confuse, perplex”), from PIE wers- (1) “to confuse, mix up”. Cognates suggest the original sense was “to bring into confusion.”
2. In English the term as prisoner of war is also known as POW: initialism (acronym) for prisoner of war, coined 1919 but not common until World War II. In humanitarian law, the rules protecting prisoners of war (POW) are specific and were first detailed in the 1929 Geneva Convention. They were refined in the third 1949 Geneva Convention, following the lessons of World War II.
3. A person belonging to one of several categories set forth in the 1949 Geneva Conventions, including members of the armed forces of a Party to a conflict or otherwise part of or attached to such forces, who has fallen into the power of the enemy and is guaranteed certain fundamental protections while in captivity. (OCHA).
4. The status of prisoners of war only applies in international armed conflicto and they are usually members of the armed forces of one of the parties to a conflicto who fall into the hands of the adverse party. However, in the sense of the Geneva Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
- Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
- Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements.
- Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.
- Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members.
- Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.
- Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory.
S: 1. Etymonline – http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=prisoner&searchmode=none ; http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=war&searchmode=none (last access: 11 November 2014). 2. Etymonline – http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=POW&allowed_in_frame=0 (last access: 11 November 2014); ICRC – https://www.icrc.org/eng/war-and-law/protected-persons/prisoners-war/overview-detainees-protected-persons.htm (last access: 11 November 2014). 3. http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/4F99A3C28EC37D0EC12574A4002E89B4-reliefweb_aug2008.pdf (last access: 18 October 2015). 4. ICRC – https://www.icrc.org/eng/war-and-law/protected-persons/prisoners-war/overview-detainees-protected-persons.htm (last access: 11 November 2014); University of Minnesota – http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/y3gctpw.htm (last access: 11 November 2014).
SYN:
S:
