{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.021406727828746176, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0015290519877675841, 'mean_word_length': 5.233333333333333, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Revising the Laws of War on Prisoners of War in the Twentieth Century: Introduction

Writing about the Armenian genocide recently in the London Review of Books, Edward Luttwak decried the inefficacy of international humanitarian law: ‘As for the Geneva Convention, I spit on it, given all the difference it has made to the fate of the Cambodians, Rwandan Tutsis, Sarajevo Bosnians and indeed every beleaguered ex-Yugoslav population.’1 It is a depressingly familiar lament. Yet has international humanitarian law – the modern term for law regulating international armed conflict which encompasses both the laws of war and customary international law – proved so inadequate?2 What, in fact, has been its changing impact and relevance across the twentieth century? This edition of War in History focuses in depth on this question, seeking to analyse specifically how one aspect of international humanitarian law has evolved: how the laws of war have affected behaviour towards prisoners in a series of chronologically and geographically diverse twentieth-century conflicts. Of course, such a thematic group of articles can never hope to conclusively address the functional or moral value of the laws of war; however, by focusing on one issue – prisoner treatment – across a series of case studies, ranging from