They’re not necessarily unlawful combatants, it really depends on the specific circumstances. The Geneva Conventions contain a few loopholes. For example, if the United States is a participating party in the conflict, US citizens are not unlawful combatants, even if they aren’t affiliated with the US armed forces.

hollow points are banned by the hague conventions, not geneva, and notably the us did not actually sign that section.

it is sort of silly though. if i understand correctly, hollow points are not terribly useful in a typical military engagement because they are easily stopped by body armor. modern military rounds like 5.56 are designed to have a small cross-sectional area at impact to penetrate armor.

Sort of. The U.S. signed Article III, but not IV. III is the section that prohibits expanding bullets, and IV limits the prohibition to conflicts between signatories. So it's clear that the U.S. is bound by Hague, but it's also arguably clear that Hague doesn't apply to any conflict that the U.S. has been involved in in the past decade.

Terminal ballistics is the mother of all holy wars. There are undending arguments over caliber, weight, soft point vs. hollow point vs. JHP, etc. Expanding bullets pretty useless against body armor, but so are pistols in general, because AFAIK the U.S. military doesn't issue armor-piercing pistol ammunition. Besides, any sort of infantry engagement will rely on 5.56 rifles, and the standard M855/M855A1 ammo, while not strictly defined as "armor piercing", does contain a steel penetrator and is quite effective against body armor at close-ish ranges.

Nevertheless, the U.S. military very much believes in the usefulness of hollow points in urban/CQ environments, and in fact the Army is now issuing hollow point bullets for the M17 and M18 service pistols. Presumably this ammo would not be used in a conflict against uniformed soldiers from a fellow Hague signatory state.

Hollow points are not banned by any convention.

According to the Wikipedia article on expanding bullets [1], "Two typical designs [of expanding bullet] are the hollow-point bullet and the soft-point bullet. [...] The Hague Convention of 1899 [...] prohibits the use of expanding bullets in international warfare"

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Expanding_bullet&...

Wikipedia is wrong on both counts.

Care to elaborate?

From the Hague Convention:

"The Contracting Parties agree to abstain from the use of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not entirely cover the core, or is pierced with incisions.

The present Declaration is only binding for the Contracting Powers in the case of a war between two or more of them.

It shall cease to be binding from the time when, in a war between the Contracting Parties, one of the belligerents is joined by a non-Contracting Power."

That doesn't describe a hollow point.

It describes a completely different type of round.

That was written primarily to apply to what is often called a "dum dum" bullet.

5.56 (with certain exceptions for things like m855 or armor piercing) is designed to fragment, not expand, and some variants that might appear to be a "hollow point" are actually designed in that way to enhance ballistic performance (OTM).

You're a bit confused on the terminology. "Dum dum" is a old colloquialism for an expanding bullet. Hollow points are a variety of expanding bullet, and the description from the Hague convention article III describes, and is intended to describe, expanding bullets. If it helps, you can look up some photos. For example, look up a photo of a Federal 115gr JHP bullet, one of the most widely used in law enforcement. That big hole in the front ain't for accuracy; it causes the bullet to expand like a mushroom after impact.

Interestingly, just last year the US Army approved the use of expanding bullets in M17 and M18 service pistols (both Sig P320). The issued ammo is Winchester XM1153, and yes, the Army (and everyone else) refers to this as a hollow point round.

EDIT: Also note that the Army disagrees with you; their justification for approving the use of hollow points is not that they're allowed under the Hague Convention, but that U.S. is not bound by it in many cases, such as warfare against irregular fighters, which describes pretty much all military conflicts for the last decade.

I specifically referred to 5.56 OTM, which is designed to operate exactly as I said, not 9mm hollow points, -- although I carried both 5.56 OTM and 9mmJHP in the mid-2000s in Afghanistan in the US military, so the Army's approval is not particularly relevant.

Also "dum dum"is a type of bullet (and I'm old enough to remember) that described a soft lead bullet that often did expand, not a hollow point. Hollow points were not in general use back then though they did exist.

I think I see the source of the confusion. The open-tip ammo you carried in Afghanistan (MK 262, or Black Hills 77gr for us civies) is not hollow point. Nobody calls it hollow point; not the Army, not SOCOM, not match shooters, nobody. So yes, I agree OTM is not covered by Hague Art. III.

But I seem to remember you saying that Hague Art. III doesn't cover HP ammo at all, which is incorrect. If you carried HP ammo in Afghanistan, it was allowed (strictly speaking) because Hague doesn't apply to conflict against irregular fighters. The U.S. military openly acknowledges that Hague prohibits HP ammo in regular warfare between signatories, and that information is everywhere you look if you follow any news or debates about military firearms. For example, the big news about the new M17 isn't the gun, but the fact that HP pistol ammo is now standard-issue, and how the Army addresses Hague Art. III in justifying the change [1].

1 - https://thenewsrep.com/73676/big-story-armys-modular-handgun...

The US Military, in my experience, has never actually applied the Hague convention to hollow points. There may be plenty of legal articles, but practice has been different. I know for a fact socom has been using them since the 80s and maybe before.

Here's an actual legal analysis that explains the ridiculous footing the Hague convention "dumdum bullet" ban (because that's what it was) has: http://www.prep-blog.com/PDF/Hague-Hollow-Points-Berry.pdf

I agree the whole thing is stupid. Every law enforcement officer in the country carries hollow point ammo. I think the military will keep nominally requiring ball ammo the next time we fight a conventional war, but not be too concerned if soldiers mix in some HP now and then. As you point out, not too different than what they already do.

Bring back letters of marque and writs of assistance?