Sa Majesté le Roi de Roumanie: Son Excellence M. Alexandre Beldiman, Son envoyé extraordinaire et ministre plénipotentiaire à Berlin; Son Excellence M. Edgar Mavrocordato, Son envoyé extraordinaire et ministre plénipotentiaire à La Haye. Sa Majesté l'Empereur de Toutes les Russies: Son Excellence M. Nelidow, Son conseiller privé actuel, Son ambassadeur à Paris; Son Excellence M. de Martens, Son conseiller privé, membre permanent du conseil du ministère Impérial des affaires étrangères, membre de la cour permanente d'arbitrage; Son Excellence M. Tcharykow, Son conseiller d'état actuel, Son chambellan, Son envoyé extraordinaire et ministre plénipotentiaire à La Haye. Le Président de la République du Salvador: M. Pedro I. Matheu, chargé d'affaires de la République à Paris, M. Santiago Perez Triana, chargé d'affaires de la République à Sa Majesté le Roi de Serbie: Son Excellence M. Sava Grouïtch, général, président du conseil d'état; Son Excellence M. Milovan Milovanovitch, Son envoyé extraordinaire et ministre plénipotentiaire à Rome, membre de la cour permanente d'arbitrage; Son Excellence M. Michel Militchevitch, Son envoyé extraordinaire et ministre plénipotentiaire à Londres et à La Haye. Sa Majesté le Roi de Siam: Mom Chatidej Udom, major-général; M. C. Corragioni d'Orelli, Son conseiller de légation; Sa Majesté le Roi de Suède, des Goths et des Vendes: Son Excellence M. Knut Hjalmar Leonard Hammarskjold, Son ancien ministre de la justice, Son envoyé extraordinaire et ministre plénipotentiaire à Copenhague, membre de la cour permanente d'arbitrage; M. Johannes Hellner, Son ancien ministre sans portefeuille, ancien membre de la cour suprême de Suède, membre de la cour permanente d'arbitrage. Le Conseil Fédéral Suisse: Son Excellence M. Gaston Carlin, envoyé extraordinaire et ministre plénipotentiaire de la Confédération suisse à Londres et à La Haye; M. Eugène Borel, colonel d'état major-général, professeur à l'université de Genève; M. Max Huber, professeur de droit à l'université de Zürich. Sa Majesté l'Empereur des Ottomans: Son Excellence Turkhan Pacha, Son ambassadeur extraordinaire, Son Excellence Rechid Bey, Son ambassadeur à Rome; Le Président de la République Orientale de l'Uruguay: Son Excellence M. José Batlle y Ordoñez, ancien président de la Le Président de la République Orientale de l'Uruguay-Continued. Son Excellence M. Juan P. Castro, ancien président du sénat, envoyé extraordinaire et ministre plénipotentiaire de la République à Paris, membre de la cour permanente d'arbitrage. Le Président des Etats-Unis de Vénézuéla: M. José Gil Fortoul, chargé d'affaires de la République à Berlin. Who, after having deposited their full powers, found in good and due form, have agreed upon the following provisions: ARTICLE I. Military hospital-ships, that is to say, ships constructed or assigned by States specially and solely with a view to assisting the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked, the names of which have been communicated to the belligerent Powers at the commencement or during the course of hostilities, and in any case before they are employed, shall be respected, and cannot be captured while hostilities last. These ships, moreover, are not on the same footing as warships as regards their stay in a neutral port. ARTICLE II. Hospital-ships, equipped wholly or in part at the expense of private individuals or officially recognized relief societies, shall be likewise respected and exempt from capture, if the belligerent Power to whom they belong has given them an official commission and has notified their names to the hostile Power at the commencement of or during hostilities, and in any case before they are employed. These ships must be provided with a certificate from the competent authorities declaring that the vessels have been under their control while fitting out and on final departure. ARTICLE III. Hospital-ships, equipped wholly or in part at the expense of private individuals or officially recognized societies of neutral countries, shall be respected and exempt from capture, on condition that they are placed under the control of one of the belligerents, with the previous consent of their own Government and with the authorization of the belligerent himself, and that the latter has notified their name to his adversary at the commencement of or during hostilities, and in any case, before they are employed. ARTICLE IV. The ships mentioned in Articles I, II, and III shall afford relief and assistance to the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked of the belligerents without distinction of nationality. The Governments undertake not to use these ships for any military purpose. These vessels must in no wise hamper the movements of the combatants. During and after an engagement they will act at their own risk and peril. The belligerents shall have the right to control and search them; they can refuse to help them, order them off, make them take a cer tain course, and put a Commissioner on board; they can even detain them, if important circumstances require it. As far as possible, the belligerents shall enter in the log of the hospital-ships the orders which they give them. ARTICLE V. Military hospital-ships shall be distinguished by being painted white outside with a horizontal band of green about a metre and a-half in breadth. The ships mentioned in Articles II and III shall be distinguished by being painted white outside with a horizontal band of red about a metre and a-half in breadth. The boats of the ships above mentioned, as also small craft which may be used for hospital work, shall be distinguished by similar painting. All hospital ships shall make themselves known by hoisting, with their national flag, the white flag with a red cross provided by the Geneva Convention, and further, if they belong to a neutral State, by flying at the mainmast the national flag of the belligerent under whose control they are placed. Hospital-ships which, in the terms of Article IV, are detained by the enemy, must haul down the national flag of the belligerent to whom they belong. The ships and boats above mentioned which wish to ensure by night the freedom from interference to which they are entitled, must, subject to the assent of the belligerent they are accompanying, take the necessary measures to render their special painting sufficiently plain. ARTICLE VI. The distinguishing signs referred to in Article V can only be used, whether in time of peace or war, for protecting or indicating the ships therein mentioned. ARTICLE VII. In the case of a fight on board a war-ship, the sick-wards shall be respected and spared as far as possible. The said sick-wards and the matériel belonging to them remain subject to the laws of war; they cannot, however, be used for any purpose other than that for which they were originally intended, so long as they are required for the sick and wounded. The commander, however, into whose power they have fallen may apply them to other purposes, if the military situation requires it, after seeing that the sick and wounded on board are properly provided for. ARTICLE VIII. Hospital-ships and sick-wards of vessels are no longer entitled to protection if they are employed for the purpose of injuring the enemy. The fact of the staff of the said ships and sick-wards being armed for maintaining order and for defending the sick and wounded, and the presence of wireless telegraphy apparatus on board, is not a sufficient reason for withdrawing protection. ARTICLE IX. Belligerents may appeal to the charity of the commanders of neutral merchant-ships, yachts, or boats to take on board and tend the sick and wounded. Vessels responding to this appeal, and also vessels which have of their own accord rescued sick, wounded, or shipwrecked men, shall enjoy special protection and certain immunities. In no case can they be captured for having such persons on board, but, apart from special undertakings that have been made to them, they remain liable to capture for any violations of neutrality they may have committed. ARTICLE X. The religious, medical, and hospital staff of any captured ship is inviolable, and its members cannot be made prisoners of war. On leaving the ship they take away with them the objects and surgical instruments which are their own private property. This staff shall continue to discharge its duties while necessary, and can afterwards leave, when the Commander-in-chief considers it possible. The belligerents must guarantee to the said staff, when it has fallen into their hands, the same allowances and pay which are given to the staff of corresponding rank in their own navy. ARTICLE XI. Sailors and soldiers on board, when sick or wounded, as well as other persons officially attached to fleets or armies, whatever their nationality, shall be respected and tended by the captors. ARTICLE XII. Any war-ship belonging to a belligerent may demand that sick, wounded, or shipwrecked men on board military hospital-ships, hospital-ships belonging to relief societies or to private individuals, merchant-ships, yachts, or boats, whatever the nationality of these vessels, should be handed over. ARTICLE XIII. If sick, wounded, or shipwrecked persons are taken on board a neutral war-ship, every possible precaution must be taken that they do not again take part in the operations of the war. ARTICLE XIV. The shipwrecked, wounded, or sick of one of the belligerents who fall into the power of the other belligerent are prisoners of war. The captor must decide, according to circumstances, whether to keep them, send them to a port of his own country, to a neutral port, or even to an enemy port. In this last case, prisoners thus repatriated cannot serve again while the war lasts. 24449-VOL 2-10-70 ARTICLE XV. The shipwrecked, sick, or wounded, who are landed at a neutral port with the consent of the local authorities, must, unless an arrangement is made to the contrary between the neutral State and the belligerent States, be guarded by the neutral State so as to prevent them again taking part in the operations of the war. The expenses of tending them in hospital and interning them shall be borne by the State to which the shipwrecked, sick, or wounded persons belong. ARTICLE XVI. After every engagement, the two belligerents, so far as military interests permit, shall take steps to look for the shipwrecked, sick, and wounded, and to protect them, as well as the dead, against pillage and ill treatment. They shall see that the burial, whether by land or sea, or cremation of the dead shall be preceded by a careful examination of the corpse. ARTICLE XVII. Each belligerent shall send, as early as possible, to the authorities of their country, navy, or army the military marks or documents of identity found on the dead and the description of the sick and wounded picked up by him. The belligerents shall keep each other informed as to internments and transfers as well as to the admissions into hospital and deaths which have occurred among the sick and wounded in their hands. They shall collect all the objects of personal use, valuables, letters. &c., which are found in the captured ships, or which have been left by the sick or wounded who died in hospital, in order to have them forwarded to the persons concerned by the authorities of their own country. ARTICLE XVIII. The provisions of the present Convention do not apply except between Contracting Powers, and then only if all the belligerents are parties to the Convention. ARTICLE XIX. The Commanders-in-chief of the belligerent fleets must see that the above Articles are properly carried out; they will have also to see to cases not covered thereby, in accordance with the instructions of their respective Governments and in conformity with the general principles of the present Convention. ARTICLE XX. The Signatory Powers shall take the necessary measures for bring ing the provisions of the present Convention to the knowledge of their naval forces, and especially of the members entitled thereunder to immunity, and for making them known to the public. |