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7.7 TREATMENT AND HANDLING OF ENEMY MILITARY DEADThe GWS and GWS-Sea address the treatment and handling of enemy dead who havebeen collected from the battlefield. 126 However, the provisions of the GWS and GWS-Searelating to the treatment and handling of enemy dead may also be interpreted to include woundedand sick combatants who have died shortly after having been collected. 127 The GPW providesother rules relating to POWs who have died while in detention. 128 Thus, certain enemy deadmay be addressed by both the GPW and GWS.Although the provisions of the GWS and GWS-Sea are not applicable to civilian dead, inmany cases it may be appropriate and practical to apply those rules by analogy. The GCprovides rules relating to protected persons who have died while interned. 1297.7.1 Treatment of Enemy Military Dead. Subject to the tactical situation and sanitationrequirements, the handling and burial of enemy military dead must be discharged with the samerespect as would be afforded to, or expected for, friendly military dead. The respectful treatmentof the dead is one of the oldest rules in the law of war. 1307.7.1.1 No Disrespectful or Degrading Treatment of the Dead. Enemy militarydead must be protected from disrespectful or degrading acts. 131 For example, mutilation or126 GWS COMMENTARY 179 (noting that “the First Convention was essentially concerned with the dead picked upon the battlefield”).127 GWS COMMENTARY 176 (“In the first place the present Article (Article 17) is essentially concerned with thedead picked up by the enemy on the battlefield, that is to say, with the mortal remains of combatants who have neverfor one moment been prisoners of war. Again, combatants who have died shortly after having been picked upwounded or sick, will have succumbed to the wounds or sickness which brought them under the protection of theFirst Convention, and it is therefore only natural that they should remain subject to the provisions of thatConvention.”).128 Refer to § 9.34 (Death of POWs).129 Refer to § 10.34 (Death of Internees).130 See, e.g, GROTIUS, LAW OF WAR & PEACE 455-56 (2.19.3.1) (“Consequently, all agree that even public enemiesare entitled to burial. Appian calls this ‘a common right of wars’; Philo, ‘the common interchange in war’. SaysTacitus: ‘Not even enemies begrudge burial.’ Dio Chrysostom says that this right is observed even ‘amongenemies’; he adds, ‘even though hatred has reached the utmost limit.’ In treating of the same matter, Lucan says thatthe laws and customs of humanity must be observed in the case of an enemy. The same Sopater, who was citedabove, asks: ‘What war has deprived the human race of this last honour? What enmity has extended the memory ofevil deeds to such a point that it would dare to violate this law?’ And Dio Chrysostom, whom I have just cited, inhis oration On the Law, says: ‘For this reason no one judges enemies after death, and wrath and insult are notextended to their bodies.’”).131 For example, Trial of Max Schmid, Outline of the Proceedings, XIII U.N. LAW REPORTS 151 (U.S. GeneralMilitary Government Court, Dachau, Germany, May 19, 1947) (“The third charge against the accused was that hedid ‘wilfully, deliberately and wrongfully encourage, aid, abet and participate in the maltreatment of a deadunknown member of the United States Army.’ … The evidence showed that shortly before the time of the alliedinvasion of France the body of a dead U.S. airman was brought to his dispensary by a detail whose duty it was tocollect dead bodies, and to remove them from the battlefield. The accused severed the head from the body, boiled itand removed the skin and flesh and bleached the skull which he kept on his desk for several months. Theprosecution alleged that he eventually sent it to his wife in Germany as a souvenir.”).430

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