...At the very most, one might say that Kirk did not comply with interstellar standards of surrender, which makes him a war criminal guilty of severely weakening the treaties that e.g. guarantee safety of casualty evacuation. Were Starfleet anything like the Royal Navy, they might execute Kirk for that. (It is akin to surrendering one's ship to an U-boat, disembarking in a lifeboat, and then having a time-bomb blow the ship up on the face of the U-boat's boarding party; this basically gives future U-boats a carte blanche for blowing up all surrendering ships as a precaution.)
But that would presuppose the interstellar standards of surrender are anything akin to the current rules ITRW. It may even be that there is no interstellar agreement on rules of war, and no reason to honor any rules because there will always be an opponent who will not honor them in return. We never see a red cross (or the Aesculapius staff, or the blue uniform) give any protection to Starfleet medics in combat, say...
Timo Saloniemi
But that would presuppose the interstellar standards of surrender are anything akin to the current rules ITRW. It may even be that there is no interstellar agreement on rules of war, and no reason to honor any rules because there will always be an opponent who will not honor them in return. We never see a red cross (or the Aesculapius staff, or the blue uniform) give any protection to Starfleet medics in combat, say...
Timo Saloniemi
