Talk:Combatant

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[edit] Juridical status

It seems that the concept of combatant has no existence, at least in international treaties. Hague Conventions and Third Geneva Convention are concerned by prisoner of war status and civilian status. Anybody out there? This article should be restricted to juridical definition, not broad dictionary definition (everybody knows what "to fight" means, this is not the scope of this article). Kaliz 17:30, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

See Article 47 of Protocol I (Additional to the Geneva Conventions) it is stated in the first sentence "A mercenary shall not have the right to be a combatant or a prisoner of war." It goes on to define who a mercenary to include "(b) [who] does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities;". Further to the Protocol I definition of a mercenary see also: the UN Mercenary Convention– Article 2 makes it an offence to employ a mercenary and Article 3.1 states that "A mercenary, as defined in article 1 of the present Convention, who participates directly in hostilities or in a concerted act of violence, as the case may be, commits an offence for the purposes of the Convention." – International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries.

So the concept of combatant does have an existance under some international treaty obligations. --Philip Baird Shearer 12:51, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Combatant

A combatant is a member of an orginized military or resistance movement (with a leader). Noncombatants are civilians, doctors and other people that give aid, mercenaries and "the criminals of war"*

• "Criminals of war" are people that use the confusion that war makes and raid and loots civilian targets.