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Collection: Primary Sources
Subject Area: Law
Subject Area: War and Peace
Topic: The Laws of War

Articles concerning Naval Warfare ( la marine ). - A. Pearce Higgins, The Hague Peace Conferences and Other International Conferences concerning the Laws and Usages of War [1909]

Edition used:

The Hague Peace Conferences and Other International Conferences concerning the Laws and Usages of War. Texts of Conventions with Commentaries, by A. Pearce Higgins, LL.D. (Cambridge University Press, 1909).

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Articles concerning Naval Warfare (la marine).

Art. 6. Boats which, at their risk and peril, during and after the engagement, pick up, or which, having picked up the shipwrecked or the wounded, convey them on board a neutral or hospital ship, shall enjoy, until the completion of their mission, such a degree of neutrality as the circumstances of the engagement and the situation of the vessels in conflict will allow to be applied to them.

The appreciation of these circumstances is left to the humanity of all the combatants.

The shipwrecked and wounded so picked up and saved cannot serve during the continuance of the war.

(Cp. 3 H. C. 1899, Art. 6. 10 H. C. 1907, Art. 9.)

Art. 7. Every person employed in the religious, medical or hospital service of any captured vessel is declared inviolable (neutre). On leaving the vessel, he carries away the articles and instruments of surgery which are his own private property.

(Cp. 3 H. C. 1899, Art. 7. 10 H. C. 1907, Arts. 9, 10.)

Art. 8. The persons designated in the preceding Article ought to continue to fulfil their functions on board the captured vessel, to assist in the evacuations of the wounded made by the victorious side, after which they should be free to return to their own country, in accordance with the second paragraph of the first additional Article above mentioned.

The stipulations of the second additional Article above mentioned are applicable to the pay of these persons.

(Cp. 3 H. C. 1899, Art. 7. 10 H. C. 1907, Art. 10.)

Art. 9. Military hospital ships remain subject to the laws of war, as regards their equipment; they become the property of the captor, but the latter cannot divert them from their special purpose during the continuance of the war.

Art. 10. Every merchant ship, to whatever nation it may belong, laden exclusively with wounded or sick, whose removal it is effecting, has the protection of neutrality; but the mere fact of a visit, notified in her log-book, by an enemy cruiser, renders the wounded and sick incapable of serving during the continuance of the war.

(Cp. 3 H. C. 1899, Arts. 6, 9.)

The cruiser shall even have the right of putting on board a commissioner to accompany the convoy to verify in this manner the good faith of the operation.

If the merchant ship carries a cargo in addition, the neutral character shall still protect it, provided that the cargo be not of a nature to be confiscated by the belligerent.

Belligerents retain the right of prohibiting neutralised vessels from having any communication and taking any direction which they consider prejudicial to the secrecy of their operations. In urgent cases special conventions may be made between the commanders-in-chief to neutralise temporarily in a special manner ships intended for the transport of the wounded or sick.

(Cp. 3 H. C. 1899, Art. 4.)

Art. 11. Wounded or sick sailors and soldiers on board ship, to whatever nation they may belong, shall be protected and taken care of by the captors. Their restoration to their country is made subject to the provisions of the sixth Article of the Convention and the fifth additional Article.

(Cp. 3 H. C. 1899, Art. 8. 10 H. C. 1907, Art. 11.)

Art. 12. The distinctive flag to be added to the national flag to denote a ship or boat of any kind which claims the benefit of neutrality in virtue of the principles of this Convention is the white flag with a red cross. Belligerents exercise in this respect all such verification as they judge necessary.

Military hospital ships shall be distinguished by white external painting, with a green broad band.

(Cp. 3 H. C. 1899, Art. 5. 10 H. C. 1907, Art. 5.)

Art. 13. Hospital ships, equipped at the expense of associations for the aid of the wounded recognized by the Governments which have signed this Convention, being provided with a commission issued by the sovereign, who shall have expressly authorized their fitting out, and with a document from a competent maritime authority, certifying that they have been submitted to its control during their fitting out and at their final departure, and that they were then appropriated exclusively to the object of their mission, shall be considered as neutral as well as all the persons employed in them.

They shall be respected and protected by the belligerents.

They shall make themselves known by hoisting with their national flag the white flag with a red cross. The distinctive mark of the persons employed on them during the exercise of their functions shall be an arm-badge of the same colours; their external painting shall be white with a red broad band.

These ships shall bring aid and assistance to the wounded and shipwrecked belligerents, without distinction of nationality.

They ought not in any way to embarrass the movements of the combatants.

During and after an engagement they shall act at their own risk and peril.

The belligerents shall have over them the right of control and visit; they may refuse their assistance, may enjoin them to remove to a distance and may detain them, if the gravity of the circumstances require it.

The wounded and shipwrecked picked up by these vessels cannot be claimed by any of the combatants, but they are under an obligation not to serve again during the continuance of the war.

(Cp. 3 H. C. 1899, Arts. 3, 4. 10 H. C. 1907, Arts. 3, 4.)

Art. 14. In naval wars, any strong presumption, that one of the belligerents profits from the benefit of neutrality in any interest other than that of the wounded and sick, allows the other belligerent, until proof of the contrary, to suspend the Convention as regards him.

If this presumption becomes a certainty, the Convention may be denounced as regards him during the continuance of the war.

Art. 15. The present Act shall be drawn up in a single original Act, which shall be deposited in the archives of the Swiss Confederation.

An authentic copy of this Act shall be delivered, with an invitation to accede thereto, to each of the powers who have signed the Convention of 22 August, 1864, as likewise to those who have successively acceded to it.

In faith whereof the undersigned Commissioners have drawn up the proposed additional articles and affixed the seals of their arms.

Done at Geneva, the 20th day of October, 1868.

GENEVA CONVENTION, 19061

[1 ]British State Papers, Treaty Series, 1907, No. 15 [Cd. 3502]; Papers relating to the Geneva Convention, 1906 [1908, Cd. 3933]; G. B. Davis, The Geneva Convention of 1906, American Journal of International Law, Vol. i. p. 400; T. E. Holland, The New Geneva Convention, Fortnightly Review, August, 1907; Idem, The Laws of War on Land, Section vi., contains a concise commentary on the articles of this Convention; J. Delpech, La Conférence de la revision de la Convention de Genève, Rev. gén. de droit int. pub. Vol. xiii. p. 629; L. Vannutelli, La revisione della Convenzione di Ginevra, Rivista di diritto internazionale, Vol. i. p. 421; Actes de la Conférence de Genève, 1906; Sir T. Barclay, Problems, etc. pp. 52, 261; Chr. Meurer, Die neue Genfer Konvention, Zeitschrift für Völkerrecht und Bundesstaatsrecht, Vol. i. (1906), p. 521.