The Issue of Nationality.

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The Issue of Nationality

A problematic question arises to the status of Nationals of the Detaining Power. The terminology used in the Geneva Convention's assumes that POWs protected by it are not Nationals of, and owe no duty of 'allegiance' to the Detaining Power1. A. Rosas claims accordingly to Article 4 in the Forth Geneva Convention, "persons protected by the Convention are only those who find themselves in the hands of a party to the conflict or occupying power of which they are not nationals"2. A National to the detaining power is considered to be a rebel and not a POW. This makes the case of John Walker Lindh, an American National swearing allegiance to the Taliban particularly interesting, should he be granted POW status?

He may feel he owes no duty of allegiance to the US authorities as he took up arms against US soldiers, but because he holds an American passport, he is officially an American National detained at Mazar-i-Sharif. He was not entitled to POW status and was tried accordingly to National Criminal Law. Therefore the case of Walker Lindh was not of a POW but that of a traitor. He was tried for ten