Political Prisoners: The Law and Politics of Protection
![handle is hein.journals/vantl9 and id is 317 raw text is: POLITICAL PRISONERS: THE LAW
AND POLITICS OF PROTECTION
David P. Forsythe*
I. INTRODUcTION
In the fall of 1975 the United States, in a much publicized step
at the United Nations, introduced an abortive resolution calling for
world-wide amnesty for political prisoners. Admittedly, this draft
resolution was withdrawn because of crippling amendments, and
it may well be that this American initiative was launched more to
deflect criticism to others than to help political prisoners. But it
seems to be the case-at least from a Western perspective-that
political prisoners are becoming a more salient subject in world
affairs. The concept of political prisoners has existed for quite a
while.' In the last decade and a half, however, non-governmental
organizations (NGO's) such as Amnesty International have tried
to arouse public concern on behalf of persons detained without
benefit of due process of law as generally found in Western democ-
racies.2 More quietly, other non-governmental organizations such
as the International Committee of the Red Cross have made regu-
lar prison visits and trial observations for these persons.3
These non-governmental efforts seem to have rekindled interest
in political prisoners. The American draft resolution of 1975 proba-
bly would not have been offered but for this renewed interest in
* Visiting Fellow, Princeton Center of International Studies; Associate Profes-
sor of Political Science, University of Nebraska.
1. See, e.g., P. PAPADATOS, LE DELIT POLrxQuE: CONTRImUTION A L' tUDE DES
CRIMES CONTRE L'LTAT(1955); R. RODIER, LE DELIT PoxriQuE (1931); P. SoRNAY,
EVOLUTION RECENTE DE L NOTION DE DELIT PoLrFiQuE EN DROIr INTENE (1936);
Graven, La Notion actuelle de delit politique dans l'tat fonde sur le droit, 1
REVUE DE DROIT INTERNATIONAL DE SCIENCES DIPLOMATIQUES Er PoLrIQuEs 37
(1958).
2. Amnesty International publishes an Annual Report giving the details of its
activities.
3. The ICRC is the Swiss organization within the international Red Cross
movement responsible for protection functions of that movement. It is to be
distinguished from the League of Red Cross Societies, which is a federation of
national Red Cross societies with an international secretariat.
A quantitative and analytic study of ICRC protection of political prisoners is
found in J. MOREILLON, LE COMrrE INTERNATIONAL DE LA CROIX-ROUGE El LA PRO-
TECTION DES DETENUS POLITIQUES (1973) [hereinafter cited as MOREILLON]; cf. D.
FORSYTHE, PRESENT ROLE OF RED CROSS PROTECTION 31 (1975).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/vantl9&div=19&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Political Prisoners: The Law and Politics of Protection
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