ABSTRACT
The internment of aliens in international law was based on the notion of perceived threat without which there could be no justification. The policy rationale behind the internment of civilian enemy aliens as prisoner of war (POW) in Canada during the Great War highlights the implications and difficulties associated with the original decision, which, falling outside traditional security parameters, underscores its dubious character. The status of civilians as POWs was problematic and no more evident than in the oscillating diplomacy between two of the major protagonists in the conflict. Both Germany and Britain were at pains to defend the rights of their subjects as civilian internees – holding their adversaries to account, while dismissing allegations of prisoner abuse under their care. Interned enemy aliens were civilian prisoners, not military combatants, and they needed to be treated as such. Moreover, it was a principle that Germany was prepared to defend and from which it would not retreat.
