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Rules of Surrender
Category: Human Rights|Strength: Mild

COGNIZANT of the World Assembly’s enduring commitment to ensuring ethical standards in warfare;

FINDING UNTENABLE the international community’s lack of just standards on the treatment of combatants laying down arms, and;

RESOLVED to rectify this oversight;

The General Assembly,

DEFINES surrender as the act of combatants capitulating to an enemy force during a time of armed conflict between nations;

DEFINES a parley as the negotiation for surrender, ceasefire, or other form of truce between representatives of parties in an armed conflict;

DEFINES a symbol of truce as an inviolable signal made by a party of the conflict for the cessation of hostilities and intention to parley, including signals of military tradition such as waving a white flag, laying down arms, or other internationally recognized symbol so associated;

DEFINES hors de combat as a state in which a combatant is immediately recognizable as unable to engage in combat, including the state of being wounded, incapacitated, unarmed, or otherwise incapable of defending themselves;

OBLIGES member states to extend the following protections and duties:

Article I. Those parties participating in a parley, under the protection of a symbol of truce, or in the process of complying with the terms of a negotiated surrender are entitled to the following:

1. Protection from assault, injury, or detainment by any combatant party to the conflict while displaying, broadcasting, or otherwise openly utilizing a symbol of truce;

2. Good faith in all negotiations relevant to the conditional surrender by combatants party to the conflict;

3. Expectation of all rights and protections afforded by World Assembly law, regardless of the status of the combatants’ nation of origin;

Article II. Those parties participating in a parley, under the protection of a symbol of truce, or in the process of complying with the terms of a negotiated surrender have the duty to:

1. Comply, in good faith, with all accepted terms of surrender, insofar as they are legal and do not constitute an outrage of personal dignity, and;

2. Refrain from perfidious activity while under the protections of a symbol of truce, including but not limited to abusing the protections of a symbol of truce, feigning surrender to take advantage of the enemy, or using a symbol of truce or parley to screen force deployment, munitions resupply, or reconnaissance operations;

Article III. Those parties accepting surrender have the duty to:

1. Immediately recognize and confer upon the surrendering party all the protections of prisoner of war status following the satisfaction of the terms of surrender, and;

2. Refrain from perfidious activity as it relates to the process of negotiating and accepting surrender;

ASSERTS that member states shall consider combatants found hors de combat to be surrendering and accordingly extend the protections outlined in Articles I and III, subject to the belligerents’ reasonable ability to comply with the duties outlined in Article II.1;

DECLARES that those belligerents in violation of the duties herein shall have their protections as outlined in Article I.1 revoked as the situation requires;

MANDATES that member states consider the deliberate and knowing violation of these Articles a war crime, and exercise their jurisdiction over violators appropriately.

This is actually one of the few proposals I have ever stood for before it reached the World Assembly... I am in support of it at the moment but I've not yet had the chance to comb through it and look for loopholes and crap like that. So if you see something, tell me so that I can switch my vote. I don't want to even have to consider an amendment repeal in three weeks.

This is actually one of the few proposals I have ever stood for before it reached the World Assembly... I am in support of it at the moment but I've not yet had the chance to comb through it and look for loopholes and crap like that. So if you see something, tell me so that I can switch my vote. I don't want to even have to consider an amendment repeal in three weeks.

I take no prisoners. 

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Well... Thank you for that addition...

I think it's good overall, but Article III and the definition of hors de combat are confusing and superfluous in my opinion.  We can't be expected to negotiate terms of surrender with enemy forces who are in the process of bleeding out or in shock.  It just doesn't make sense. 

Also, the restriction of perfidy might duplicate the POW Accord.  I'll have to double check.

UPDATE
I think the actual question is whether a "POW" as defined by GAR#18 (POW Accord): DEFINES a "Prisoner of War", henceforth “PoW”, as a member of a belligerent armed force, excluding diplomats, found in uniform or where there is other good reason to believe he or she belongs to an opposing armed force, who has been apprehended by an opposing nation

Would fit the definition of "surrendering" provided by the proposal:
DEFINES surrender as the act of combatants capitulating to an enemy force during a time of armed conflict between nations;

...and I'm not sure it does.  GAR#18 seems to imply a passive role by the surrendering force, while the proposal is more active, as the surrendering force must capitulate. 

In that case, I don't think there's any duplication error.