Page 183 - The Arabian Gulf States_Neat

THE PRESENT LEGAL POSITION 121
armed conflict between the Shaikhdoms and the United Kingdom is
not regarded as an international conflict, or a war between sovereign
independent States, this conflict would appear to come within the
provisions of Article 3 of the Geneva Convention relating to the
Treatment of Prisoners of War of 12 August 1949. This Article
provides:
In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring
in the territory of one of the High contracting Parties, each Party to the
conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, certain humanitarian
obligations regarding the treatment of prisoners captured during this armed
conflict.1
This Article, says a commentator,
is like a ‘convention in miniature'. It applies to non-international conflicts
only, and, will be the only Article applicable to them until such time as a
special agreement between the Parties has brought into force between them
all or part of the other provisions of the Convention.2
And, according to Gutteridge:
The present article is of a much more limited character. It was inten­
tionally so drafted that the application of the Convention in the case of
non international conflicts should in no wise depend upon the recognition
of insurgents as belligerents, cither by outside states or by the legitimate
Government.
Quoting H. Lauterpacht, Gutteridge then continues:
There is, at present, ‘no question of international law conferring a right of
recognition upon the belligerents or imposing a corresponding duty upon
the lawful government.’3
It is worthy of note, however, that the ‘armed conflicts’ to which
Article 3 of the Geneva Convention under discussion is intended to
apply arc defined as those
armed conflicts, with armed forces on either side engaged in hostilities—
conflicts, in short, which are in many respects similar to an international
war, but take place within the confines of a single country. In many cases,
each of the Parties is in possession of a portion of the national territory,
and there is often some sort of front.4
Consequently, it may be observed, in'the light of the above inter­
pretation of Article 3, that the specific reference in this Article to an

1 Treaty Series, Misc., No. 4 (1950), Cmd. 8033, p. 44; Sec also Gutteridge,
J. A. C., ‘The Geneva Convention of 1949’, B.Y.J.L., 26 (1949), pp. 300-1.
= Uhler, O. M., Coursier, H., and others, The Geneva Conventions of 12 August,
1949, Commentary IV. (1949), English translation by Major Ronald Griffin and
C. W. Dumblcton, pp. 34-6.
3 Gutteridge, op. cit., p. 301. 4 Uhler and others, op. cit., p. 36.