The Historical Stages of the Discussion about the Status of Prisoners of War at the International Conferences of the 19th Century

Nowadays the study of the formation and development of the legal status of prisoners of war is a task of current importance for historians. Present-day events demonstrate that moral treatment of prisoners of war is one of the developmental quotients of the whole society. The chronological frames of the paper are determined by the fact that it was in the 19th century that the fundamentals of the unifi ed legislation related to prisoners of war were created. The purpose of the work is to analyse the stages of formation of the legal status of prisoners of war within the framework of conventions and declarations adopted in the 19th century at the international conferences held in Geneva, Saint Petersburg, Brussels and The Hague. Finally, the author draws a conclusion about the international legal status of the prisoners of war at the end of the 19th century.