Recommendation 58

The principal part of international law concerned with hostage taking is the International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages, which came into force in 1983. Article 1 of the convention defines the offence of hostage taking.133 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 judicial 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 commits the offence of taking hostages (“hostage-taking”) within the means of this Convention.