Interpretation in the Updated GCIII Commentary

Abstract

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Updated Commentary to the Third Geneva Convention is a remarkable feat of scholarship worthy of serious academic attention. It leaves almost no interpretive stone unturned in its effort to identify the humanitarian possibilities of the universally ratified 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

But the extent to which it will continue its predecessor’s role as a reliable and practically useful guide for States’ law of war practitioners is in doubt. The same variety of interpretation and extensive incorporation of academic work that will make the Updated Commentary so interesting to scholars also makes it a fraught source for the military, diplomatic, and judicial practitioners called on to implement the Convention consistent with established meaning in the challenging conditions of armed conflict.