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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cerebral Paladin" data-source="post: 5724118" data-attributes="member: 3448">Way back at the beginning of the thread, Sepulchrave asked whether goblinoids are covered by the Geneva Conventions.  Just thought I'd take a stab at an answer.  There are a couple of key questions:  are goblinoids "persons" as that term is used in the Geneva Conventions is the big one, but questions like whether the fantasy army is a "Power" and whether it would "accept[] and appl[y] the provisions" of the Geneva Conventions without being a formal "High Contracting Power" also apply.  But as I said, the big one is the meaning of the word "persons," which is, to the best of my knowledge and after very brief research, not defined within the Conventions.  I think that's a clearly open question, but there is at least a decent argument that it would apply to other sapients. The Conventions include substantial language designed to avoid the limiting of the concept of "persons" or of the protections to be provided.  For example, Art. III (which sets minimum standards for non-international conflicts), specifies: "Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria."  The language about "without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth, or wealth, or any other similar criteria" recurs elsewhere.  In context, I think that's clearly designed to say that a power can't say that, for example, Jewish people, or people of African descent, or other historically discriminated groups are not "worthy" of full protection under the Conventions.  The next extension, to say that limiting the Convention to protecting humans rather than all persons violates the "any other similar criteria" language, seems pretty sound to me.  Of course, that's a qualifier to the word "persons":  dogs, horses, and (I presume, although I don't know if it's ever been tested) dolphins and apes aren't persons, and therefore do not receive the protections of the Conventions.  And I'm sure that some people would say that goblins are also not "persons," and therefore that distinguishing goblins from humans is not an application of "any other similar criteria" but rather an application of the meaning of the word "persons."  But I'm not persuaded:  the Conventions are intended to sweep broadly, and are based both on a concept of what sort of behavior is acceptable for modern nations and on a desire to prevent atrocities by the other side.  In that context, and in light of the breadth of the language and the desire to prevent exclusions based on individual characteristics, I think the best interpretation would be that "persons" includes non-human persons.I'm going to leave it at that, because it's a bit of a tangent, and probably boring to most non-lawyers anyway. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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