Debellatio

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Debellatio (also debellation) (lat.: "Defeating, or the act of conquering or subduing") designates the end of a war caused by complete destruction of a hostile state.

The Unconditional surrender of Germany at the end of World War II has been cited as a case of Debellatio ^[1][2][3]. In other cases debellation ends with a complete dissolution and annexation of the defeated state into the victor's national territory, as happened at the end of the Third Punic War with the defeat of Carthage by Rome in the second century BC^[4].

[edit] See also

• Laws of war
• Total war
• Disarmed Enemy Forces

[edit] Further reading

• Anne Armstrong, "Unconditional Surrender: The Impact of the Casablanca Policy upon World War II", Greenwood Pub Group 1974, ISBN 0837170427
• Max Rheinstein The Legal Status of Occupied Germany Michigan Law Review, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Nov., 1948), pp. 23-40 doi:10.2307/1284507
• Ruth Wedgwood Judicial Overreach(PDF) Wall Street Journal November 16, 2004

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ ICRC Commentaries on the Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War Article 5 "The German capitulation was both political, involving the dissolution of the Government, and military, whereas the Japanese capitulation was only military".
2. ^ The human rights dimensions of population (Page 2, paragraph 138) UNHCR web site
3. ^ Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1993 Volume II Part Two Page 54, paragraph 295 (last paragraph on the page)
4. ^ 2004 Scripps National Spelling Bee Consolidated Word List Page 8