Reply #14: This Is A Trick Question, Old Friend

[The Magistrate]

The very category of "unlawful combatant" is established by the Geneva Conventions. Whether or not a person is properly categorized as an "unlawful combatant" must be established by a tribunal, which can be military, using the same standards of evidence and procedure that would be applied to the soldiers of the nation conducting the hearing, and that body must then conclude the person was not part of any legitimate armed body under the Convention, and that that person committed crimes of war. A person certainly cannot be simply declared an "unlawful combatant" by fiat. A person who is legitimately determined to be such is certainly subject to prosecuton for the criminal acts he has committed. But all signatories of the Geneva Convention are obligated, even when dealing with persons not strictly covered by the Conventions, such as citizens of a state that has not signed the convention, or persons who have been judged "unlawful combatants" under it, to refrain from torture and similar mistreatments.