¹ See Arts. 6 and 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Arts. 4 and 7 of the American Convention on Human Rights and Arts. 2 and 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

² Resolution 31/103 approved by the United Nations General Assembly on 15 December 1976.

³ See the statement of the delegate of Poland before the ad hoc Committee on the drafting of an international convention against the taking of hostages. UN doc. A/33/39, 1978.

⁴ Aston, Clive C. “Political Hostage Taking in Western Europe”, Conflict Studies, Vol. 157, 1984.Google Scholar

⁵ The Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft signed in The Hague on 16 December 1970 states that any person who unlawfully, by force or threat thereof, or by any other form of intimidation, seizes an aircraft, commits an offence.

The Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation signed in Montreal on 23 September 1971 states that any person commits an offence if he performs an act of violence which is likely to endanger the safety of an aircraft in flight.

The UN Convention adopted on 14 December 1973 in New York made it a crime, among other things, to kidnap an internationally protected person within the meaning of the treaty.

⁶ See Arts. 1 and 2 of the Washington Convention of 1971 and Art. 1(d) of the European Convention of 1977.

⁷ Verwey, Wil D., “The International Hostages Convention and National Liberation Movements”, American Journal of International Law, Vol. 75(1), 1981, p. 70, footnote 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸ See Jiménez de Arechaga, Eduardo, El Derecho Internacional Contemporáneo, Madrid, 1980, pp. 80–84 Google Scholar. Jiménez de Arechaga considers that the concept of jus cognens goes beyond the ban on hostage-taking to include the prohibition of the use or the threat of force and violence, the prevention and suppression of genocide, piracy, the slave trade, racial discrimination and terrorism.

⁹ See Scelle, G., Cours du Droit international public (le fédéralisme international), Paris, 1947–1948, p. 101 et seq.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Draper, G.I.A.D., “The Implementation and Enforcement of the Geneva Con ventions of 1949 and of the Two Additional Protocols of 1977”, Collected Courses of The Hague Academy of International Law, Vol. 164(III), 1979, pp. 32–34.Google Scholar

¹¹ Pilloud, Claude, “La Rançon”, in: Studies and Essays on international Humanitarian Law and Red Cross Principles, in Honour of Jean Pictet, Swinarski, C., ed., ICRC Martinus Nijhoff, Geneva/The Hague, 1984, pp. 515–520.Google Scholar

¹² Annual Digest, 1948, Case No. 215, p. 632.Google Scholar

¹³ Pilloud, , op. cit., p. 520.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Kalshoven, Frits, Constraints on the Waging of War, International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva, 1987, p. 40.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Article 1, para. 4, of 1977 Protocol I states, with regard to its scope of application, that international armed conflicts include those in which “peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination, as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations”.

¹⁶ Article 50, para 1, of 1977 Additional Protocol I states: “A civilian is any person who does not belong to one of the categories of persons referred to in Article 4 A (1), (2), (3) and (6) of the Third Convention and in Article 43 of this Protocol. In case of doubt whether a person is a civilian, that person shall be considered to be a civilian”.

¹⁷ Article 75, para 2(e) of 1977 Additional Protocol I.

¹⁸ See Solf, Waldemar A., “International Terrorism in Armed Conflict” in: Terrorism, Political Violence and World Order, Han, H. H. ed., 1984, p. 470.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Article 12 of the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages of 1979 reads as follows: “In so far as the Geneva Conventions of 1949 for the protection of war victims or the Additional Protocols to those Conventions are applicable to a particular act of hostage-taking, and in so far as States Parties to this Convention are bound under those conventions to prosecute or hand over the hostage-taker, the present Convention shall not apply to an act of hostage-taking committed in the course of armed conflicts as defined in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Protocols thereto, including armed conflicts mentioned in article 1, paragraph 4, of Additional Protocol I of 1977, in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination, as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.”

²⁰ de Solá, Domingo Mercedes, “La Convención internacional contra la Toma de Rehenes”, Revista española de Derecho Internacional, Vol. 35(1), 1983, p. 88.Google Scholar

²¹ Ibid., p. 91, note 23.

²² Article 1 of the 1979 International Convention against the Taking of Hostages reads as follows:

“1. Any person who seizes or detains and threatens to kill, to injure or to continue to detain another person (hereinafter referred to as the ‘hostage’) in order to compel a third party, namely, a State, an international intergovernmental organization, a natural or juridical person, or a group of persons, to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for release of the hostage commits the offence of taking of hostages (‘hostage taking’) within the meaning of this Convention.

2. Any person who:

(a) attempts to commit an act of hostage-taking, or

(b) participates as an accomplice of anyone who commits or attempts to commit an act of hostage-taking likewise commits an offence for the purposes of this convention.”

²³ UN doc. A/C. 6/34/SR. 62, Art. 7 (1979).

²⁴ For a discussion on terrorism and international humanitarian law, see Gasser, Hans-Peter, “Prohibition of Terrorist Acts in International Humanitarian Law”, International Review of the Red Cross, No. 253, 07–08 1986, p. 200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁵ Verwey, , op. cit., p. 79 Google Scholar

²⁶ Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation amongst States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. GA Res. 2625 (XXV) of 24 October 1970.

²⁷ Verwey, , op. cit., p. 83.Google Scholar

²⁸ The only provision relating to the application of humanitarian rules governing non-international armed conflicts and sanctions for the violation of those rules is Art. 19 of Protocol II, which merely states that the Protocol shall be disseminated as widely as possible.

²⁹ Rosenstock, Robert, “International Convention against the Taking of Hostages: Another International Community Step against Terrorism”, Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, Vol. 19(2), 1980.Google Scholar

³⁰ See the remarks made by the delegate of Chile before the ad hoc Committee on the drafting of an international convention against the taking of hostages, Doc. UN AG, Supplement No. 39(A) 32/39.

³¹ Article 1(d) of the European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism expressly excludes an offence involving kidnapping, the taking of a hostage or serious unlawful detention from the category of offences inspired by political motives.

³² Article 1(d) and (h) of the Supplementary Treaty of Extradition between the United States and the United Kingdom states that none of the offences cited in the 1979 International Convention against the Taking of Hostages may be regarded as political offences.

³³ Swinarski, Christophe, Introducción al Derecho Internacional Humanitario, CICR, San José/Geneva, 1984.Google Scholar

³⁴ See Art. 126 of the Third Geneva Convention, Art. 143 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Art. 81 of Protocol I.

³⁵ Annual Report 1980, International Committee of the Red Cross, p. 53.Google Scholar

³⁶ Ibid., pp. 28–29.

³⁷ Freymond, Jacques, Guerres, Révolutions, Croix-Rouge: Réflexions sur le rôle du CICR, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, 1976.Google Scholar

³⁸ The International Committee of the Red Cross and Internal Disturbances and Tensions, International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva, 08 1986, p. 16.Google Scholar

³⁹ Ibid., Annex IV, Attitude of the Red Cross to the taking of hostages, pp. 34–35.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Ibid., p. 35.