Legal regulation of the status of prisoners of war in accordance with the standards of international humanitarian law: historical and modern retrospective

Abstract

Annotation. The article is devoted to the study of the norms of international humanitarian law in force in Ukraine regarding prisoners of war and the history of their implementation in the Ukrainian legal field. A thorough analysis of the norms of international humanitarian law and their implementation in national legislation is carried out. The Third Geneva Convention clearly defines the concept of prisoners of war, which is particularly important for the issues under study, to whom both the personnel of the armed forces of one of the warring parties, as well as members of the resistance movement, as well as the population that defends its state from attack and is not reorganized in official armed formations. Ukraine has undertaken to fulfill all obligations regarding prisoners of war, which are prescribed in the Geneva Conventions, as well as additional protocols to the Geneva Conventions of June 8, 1977, which were ratified by Ukraine on August 18, 1989 and entered into force on July 25, 1990. Ukraine also undertakes to implement the UN Convention against Torture, which has been in force in Ukraine since November 5, 1998. The lack of proper legal regulation of the status of prisoners of war, their legal understanding and a defined set of guarantees was noted. Attention is focused on the declarative nature of norms. In general, despite the state of war in Ukraine, the situation of enemy prisoners of war who are in captivity of the state of Ukraine is based solely on Ukraine's adherence to the norms of IHL and international conventions for the protection of these rights, it is necessary to state the real observance of human rights, respect for the dignity of the person and the rule of law . Along with this, the urgent problem is the status of prisoners of war in the aggressor state, the impossibility of obtaining access to information about them in accordance with international and national institutions, cruel and inhumane treatment - this is a colossal pain of our society. The perspective of further research is defined as the issue of forming military law into a complex branch of national legislation, determining the guarantees of prisoners of war, the issue of their exchange, etc.