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Lawyer lent clarity to why Armenians detained in Azerbaijan are not considered prisoners of war on basis of international conventions

30 April 2021 13:18 (UTC +04:00)

“In recent times, Armenia raises the issue of prisoners of war, which does not exist in a number of international events. Prisoner of war is a concept formed in the course of long-term development of modern international humanitarian law, and the legal status of the people that it covers has been firstly determined in the Geneva Convention of 27 July 1929 “on the treatment of prisoners of war”, the Member of the Judicial-Legal Council, Member of the Committee on Legal Policy and State Building of the Milli Majlis, MP Nizami Safarov told APA.

According to N. Safarov, taking into consideration of the sad results of the Second World war, provisions about the mentioned people have been included in Protocol No. 1 in addition to the Geneva Convention (III) relative to the "Treatment of Prisoners of War" 12 August 1949 and Geneva Conventions relating to the “ protection of victims of international conflicts" dated June 8, 1977,

“Thus, the latest two legal documents define the regime of prisoner of war. It should firstly be taken into consideration that according to the Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention, persons who are included in personnel of the armed forces of one of the parties to the conflict and are captured by the other party to the conflict are recognized as prisoners of war. The status of prisoner of war can be given just to combatants. Combatants are those, who are included in the armed forces of the parties of the conflict, have a right to participate in military operations. According to international humanitarian law, spies and mercenaries can not be recognized as prisoners of war. This approach towards subjects belonging to the last category has also been considered in the Article 16 of the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries dated December 4, 1989. One of the most legal principles, making the obtaining the status of prisoner of war necessary is that international armed conflict should exist for obtaining such status.
Joint statement signed by Azerbaijani and Russian Presidents and Armenian Prime Minister on November 10, 2020, declared end of conflict de-facto and de-jure.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has openly stated that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict no longer exists and is already a history. The question is here, in what essence should the members of the Armenian armed forces, who entered the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan after the end of the conflict, be recognized? This has only one answer – They are criminals, diversants, terrorist and under no circumstances they can use the protection of international humanitarian law. The liability of persons entering the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan after the end of an international armed conflict may be implemented only on the basis of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan. It should be reiterated that international humanitarian law does not apply to those persons.”