ABSTRACT
The official position of the United states government is that prisoners at Guantanamo are not "prisoners of war" in the sense of the Geneva Convention, and they are not therefore entitled to claim the protection of every provision in the convention. The International Committee of the Red Cross and its human rights group allies insist that the convention requires individualized hearings to determine whether a particular detainee can be held as a war criminal or should be classified as a "lawful combatant", subject to the full protections of the convention. If the protections of the Geneva Convention are regarded as reciprocal concessions by the "contracting parties"–the states sponsoring the forces in conflict–then systematic violations by one side should release the other side from its obligations. The opposing side might actually claim to be strengthening international standards by denying legitimacy to forces that systematically violate the laws of war.
