1 This article discusses hostage-taking only in situations of armed conflict. It distinguishes hostage-taking from kidnapping, the latter being motivated solely by private and financial considerations.

2 Thus no definition of “hostage” (nor in fact of “hostage-taking”) is given by the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, nor by their two Additional Protocols of 1977. The International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages, signed in New York on 18 December 1979, defines the hostage-taker as “§1. Any person who seizes or detains and threatens to kill, to injure or to continue to detain another person (hereinafter referred to as the “hostage”) in order to compel a third party, namely, a State, an international intergovernmental organization, a natural or juridical person, or a group of persons, to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the hostage.” However, it should be noted that by virtue of its Article 12, the Convention does not apply to acts of hostage-taking committed in time of armed conflict, for which the Geneva Conventions make it an obligation for the States Parties to extradite or prosecute the alleged perpetrator.

3 A gap in historical literature which even historians themselves point out (see Philippe Contamine, Autobiographie d'un prisonnier-otage : Philippe de Vigneulles au chateau dc Chauvency, Sylvie Caucanas, Rémy Cazals, Pascal Payen (dir), Contacts entre peuples et cultures. Les prisonniers de guerre dans l'Histoire, Éditions Privat, Toulouse, 2003, p. 39).

4 In old French, the word “hostage” meant lodging or dwelling place; and the expression “prendre en ostage” originally meant to take into the house the person who is to serve as surety for the execution of a contract. It later came to mean the person himself, the “guest” that one keeps, Robert, Paul, Dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique de la langue française, Vol. VI, Le Robert, Paris, 1990, p. 1012.Google Scholar

5 See, for example, Elliott, H. Wayne, “Hostages or prisoners of war: War crimes at dinner”, Military Law Review, No. 149, 1995Google Scholar (the author speaks of “True Hostages” for voluntary hostages and of “Indirect Hostages” for involuntary ones); Claude Pilloud, “La question des otages et les Conventions de Geneve”, Revue Internationale de la Croix-Rouge, No. 378, June 1950; Adam J. Kosto, “L'otage comme vecteur d'échange culturel du IV^e au XV^e siecle”, Sylvie Caucanas, Rémy Cazals, Pascal Payen (dir.), op. cit. (note 3).

6 The word appears in 1081 in the epic poem La Chanson de Roland.

7 Vance, Jonathan F. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Prisoners of War and Internment, ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara, Denver, Oxford, 2000, p. 81.Google Scholar

8 Ducrey, Pierre, Guerre et guerriers dans la Grèce antique, Office du Livre, Fribourg, 1985, p. 242.Google Scholar

9 Writing in the form of a romantic novel, Ismail Kadare portrayed this episode in his work, Les tambours de la plute, Gallimard, Paris, 1979 (in French translation).

10 Cardini, Franco, “I captivi cristiani frutto di guerra santa ‘crociata’; nei luoghi santi”, in Cipollone, Giulio (ed.), La Liberazione dei ‘captivi’ tra cristianità e islam. Oltre la crociata e il Gihad. Tolleranza e servizio umanitario, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Vatican City, 2000, p. 326Google Scholar. This type of relationship differs moreover from the famous Stockholm syndrome experienced after a relatively long period of captivity.

11 Roche, Christian, Histoire de la Casamance. Conquête et résistance: 1850–1920, Éditions Karthala, Paris, 1985, p. 112.Google Scholar

12 Herrmann, Iréne, Palmieri, Daniel, “Les nouveaux conflits: une modernité archaique?” International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 85, No. 849, March 2003, pp. 37 ff.Google Scholar

13 Guiomar, Jean-Yves, L'invention de la guerre totale XVIII^e —XX^e siède, Le Félin, Paris, 2004.Google Scholar

14 US War Department, General Orders No, 100. Instructions for the Government of the Armies of the United States in the Field, Washington, D.C., 1863Google Scholar, Art. 54 (emphasis added).

15 Until the entry into force of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 formally prohibiting the practice, international law did not preclude this method, especially if it served a military advantage (e.g. the Hostages Case, United States v. Wilhelm List, 1950 (see H. Wayne Elliot, op. cit. (note 5)). Today the taking of hostages counts as one of the grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention (Art. 147).

16 Certainly the status of voluntary hostage does need to be qualified because, as Adam J. Kosto points out, the act of giving is generally made under duress. But, “so that this giving of hostages might serve to guarantee an agreement, the two parties had to recognize the hostage as such. Therefore, [voluntary] hostages differ from captives and prisoners of war.” Adam J. Kosto, “L'otage comme vecteur d'échange culturel…”, op. cit. (note 5), p. 172; for a similar viewpoint, see also Franco Cardini, “I captivi cristiani frutto di guerra santa ‘crociata’…”, op. cit. (note 10), p. 328.

17 This method was also widely used during the American Civil War (see Garrison, Webb B., Civil War Hostages: Hostage Taking in the Civil War, White Mane Publishing Company, Shippensburg, PA, 2000Google Scholar). More recently, the detention of the crew of the American ship the USS Pueblo, a vessel boarded and seized by the North Korean navy in January 1968, served as leverage and a means of propaganda against the US government at the height of the Vietnam War, until the vessel and crew were released eleven months later.

18 In this case nothing distinguishes a situation of war from a situation of peace in which the same sort of transaction is practised (see e.g. the article of Philippe Contamine, “Autobiographie d'un prisonnierotage: Philippe de Vigneulles au chàteau de Chauvency”, loc. cit. (note 3)).

19 This observation moreover prompted the famous international lawyer, Hugo Grotius, to advocate – in a modern State respectful of the law of nations – that all prisoners be systematically treated as hostages and thus held to ransom.

20 Giuseppe Ligato, “Saladino e i prigionieri di guerra”, Giulio Cipollone (ed.), op. cit. (note 10), p. 650.

21 Zieseniss, Charles-Otto, “A Vienne en 1809: extraits du Journal du comte Eugen von Czernin und Chudenic à propos de l'occupation française”, Revue du souvenir napoléonien, No. 376, April 1991, pp. 2–18Google Scholar. During World War 1, Germany once again resorted to this method, deporting hundreds of civilians from the occupied zones in northern France to German territory and even into Russia (see Becker, Annette, Oubliés de la Grande Guerre. Humanitaire et culture de guerre, Éditions Noésis, Paris, 1998, especially pp. 27–88Google Scholar). The tsarist armies did the same at the outset of the conflict in East Prussia: the German hostages were sent off to Siberia. Needless to say, the deportation of hostages was just as widely used during World War II.

22 This procedure was revived during World War II by the German authorities, who arrested Dutch nationals in Holland in retaliation against the internment of German nationals in the Dutch East Indies. See Claude Pilloud, op. cit. (note 5), p. 433.

23 Portelli, Alessandro, L'ordine è già stato eseguito. Roma, le fosse ardeatine, la memoria, la storia, Donzelli, Rome, 2001Google Scholar (English edition: The Order Has Been Carried Out: History, Memory and the Meaning of a Nazi Massacre in Rome, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2004Google Scholar).

24 The civil war in Colombia unquestionably stands out in this latter category, with several hundred hostages in the hands of the armed opposition, the most famous being the politician Ingrid Betancourt kidnapped by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in February 2002.

25 Irène Herrmann, Daniel Palmieri, “Les nouveaux conflits…”, op. cit. (note 12), pp. 25ff.

26 Hennion, Cécile, “L'industrie du rapt, ‘nouveau fléau de l'Trak’, est en pleine expansion”, Le Monde, 28 September 2004Google Scholar.

27 An example of this was the British hostage, Margaret Hassan, both a woman and a humanitarian worker whose activities included helping children who, moreover, were Iraqi.

28 As per this revealing title, Fisk, Robert, “What price innocence in the anarchy of Iraq?” Vie Independent, 17 November 2004.Google Scholar

29 However, this tactic can backfire on the abductors, as happened in the case of the Beslan school. Although all the ingredients seemed to be there (the innocence of the victims, most of whom were children, the presence and interest of the media, mainly western), the most important ingredient was missing: the value that is placed on an individual life — a philosophy which, historically speaking, is not customary in Russian society.

30 This method of hostage-taking started on a very wide scale during the war in Lebanon in the 1980s, especially with the abduction of several French journalists and two ICRC staff members.

31 The buying and selling of hostages between groups of abductors is a current practice in certain crisis contexts (for example, in Irak).

32 Münkler, Herfried, Die neuen Kriege, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 2002Google Scholar; the author published a summarized version under the title “The wars of the 21st century”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 85, No. 849, March 2003, pp. 7–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 Louyot, Alain, “La strategie de l'innommable”, L'Express, 27 September 2004.Google Scholar