His Majesty the German Emperor, King of Prussia; the President of the United States of America; the President of the Argentine Republic; His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, etc., and Apostolic King of Hungary; His Majesty the King of the Belgians; the President of the Republic of Bolivia; the President of the Republic of the United States of Brazil; His Royal Highness the Prince of Bulgaria; the President of the Republic of Chile; His Majesty the Emperor of China; the President of the Republic of Colombia; the Provisional Governor of the Republic of Cuba; His Majesty the King of Denmark; the President of the Dominican Republic; the President of the Republic of Ecuador; His Majesty the King of Spain; the President of the French Republic; His Majesty the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Emperor of India; His Majesty the King of the Hellenes; the President of the Republic of Guatemala; the President of the Republic of Haiti; His Majesty the King of Italy; His Majesty the Emperor of Japan; His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Luxemburg, Duke of Nassau; the President of the United States of Mexico; His Royal Highness the Prince of Montenegro; the President of the Republic of Nicaragua; His Majesty the King of Norway; the President of the Republic of Panama; the President of the Republic of Paraguay; Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands; the President of the Republic of Peru; His Imperial Majesty the Shah of Persia; His Majesty the King of Portugal and of the Algarves, etc.; His Majesty the King of Roumania; His Majesty the Emperor of All the Russias; the President of the Republic of Salvador; His Majesty the King of Serbia; His Majesty the King of Siam; His Majesty the King of Sweden; the Swiss Federal Council; His Majesty the Emperor of the Ottomans; the President of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay; the President of the United States of Venezuela:

Animated alike by the desire to diminish, as far as depends on them, the inevitable evils of war; and

Wishing with this object to adapt to maritime war the principles of the Geneva Convention of July 6, 1906:

Have resolved to conclude a Convention for the purpose of revising the Convention of July 29, 1899, relative to this question, and have appointed as their Plenipotentiaries, that is to say:

Who, after having deposited their full powers, found to be in good and due form, have agreed upon the following provisions:—

Article 1

Military hospital-ships, that is to say, ships constructed or adapted by States for the particular and sole purpose of aiding the sick, wounded, 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 may not be captured while hostilities last.

Such ships, moreover, are not on the same footing as war-ships as regards their stay in a neutral port.

Article 2

Hospital-ships, equipped wholly or in part at the expense of private individuals or officially recognised relief societies, shall likewise be respected and exempt from capture, if the belligerent Power to which 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.

Such ships shall be provided with a certificate from the proper authorities declaring that the vessels have been under their control while fitting out and on final departure.

Article 3

Hospital-ships, equipped wholly or in part at the expense of private individuals or officially recognised societies of neutral countries, shall be respected and exempt from capture, on condition that they are placed under the orders of one of the belligerents, with the previous consent of their own Government and with the authorisation of the belligerent himself, and on condition also 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 4

The ships mentioned in Articles 1, 2, and 3 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.

Such 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 may refuse to help them, order them off, make them take a certain course, and put a Commissioner on board; they may even detain them, if the situation is such as to require it.

The belligerents shall, as far as possible, enter in the log of the hospital-ships the orders which they give them.

Article 5

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 2 and 3 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 said ships, 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 orders they are placed.

Hospital-ships which are detained under Article 4 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 6

The distinguishing signs referred to in Article 5 shall only be used, whether in peace or war, for protecting or indicating the ships therein mentioned.

Article 7

In the case of a fight on board a war-ship, the sick-bays shall be respected and spared as far as possible.

The said sick-bays 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 into whose power they have fallen may, however, if the military situation requires it, apply them to other purposes, after seeing that the sick and wounded on board are properly provided for.

Article 8

Hospital-ships and sick-bays 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-bays being armed for maintaining order and for defending the sick and wounded, and the presence of wireless telegraphy apparatus on board, are not sufficient reasons for withdrawing protection.

Article 9

Belligerents may appeal to the charity of the commanders of neutral merchant-ships, yachts, or boats to take the sick and wounded on board and tend them.

Vessels responding to this appeal, and also vessels which may have of their own accord rescued sick, wounded, or shipwrecked men, shall enjoy special protection and certain immunities. In no case may they be captured for the sole reason of having such persons on board; but, subject to any undertaking that may have been given to them, they remain liable to capture for any violations of neutrality they may have committed.

Article 10

The religious, medical, and hospital staff of any captured ship is inviolable, and its members may not be made prisoners of war. On leaving the ship they are entitled to remove their own private belongings and surgical instruments.

They shall continue to discharge their duties so far as necessary, and can afterwards leave, when the Commander-in-Chief considers it permissible.

Belligerents must guarantee to the said staff, while in their hands, the same allowances and pay as are given to the staff of corresponding rank in their own navy.

Article 11

Sick or wounded sailors, soldiers on board, or other persons officially attached to fleets or armies, whatever their nationality, shall be respected and tended by the captors.

Article 12

Any war-ship belonging to a belligerent may demand the surrender of 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 such vessels.

Article 13

If sick, wounded, or shipwrecked persons are taken on board a neutral war-ship, precaution must be taken, so far as possible, that they do not again take part in the operations of the war.

Article 14

The sick, wounded, or shipwrecked 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 may not serve again while the war lasts.

Article 15

The sick, wounded, or shipwrecked, who are landed at a neutral port with the consent of the local authorities, must, in default of arrangement to the contrary between the neutral State and the belligerent States, be guarded by the neutral States so as to prevent them from 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 16

After every engagement, the two belligerents shall, so far as military interests permit, take steps to look for the sick, wounded, and shipwrecked, and to protect them, as well as the dead, against pillage and improper 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 17

Each belligerent shall send, as early as possible, the military marks or documents of identity found on the dead and a list of the names of the sick and wounded picked up by him to the authorities of their country, navy, or army.

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, etc., which may be found in the captured ships, or which may 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 18

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 19

The Commander-in-Chief of the belligerent fleets shall give detailed directions for carrying out the preceding Articles and for meeting cases not therein provided for, in accordance with the instructions of their respective Governments and in conformity with the general principles of the present Convention.

Article 20

The Signatory Powers shall take the necessary steps in order to bring the provisions of the present Convention to the knowledge of their naval forces, and especially of the members entitled thereunder to immunity, and to make them known to the public.

Article 21

The Signatory Powers likewise undertake to enact or to propose to their Legislatures, if their criminal laws are inadequate, the measures necessary for checking in time of war individual acts of pillage and ill-treatment in respect to the sick and wounded in the fleet, as well as for punishing as an unjustifiable adoption of naval or military marks, the unauthorised use of the distinctive marks mentioned in Article 5, by vessels not protected by the present Convention.

They shall communicate to each other, through the Netherland Government, the enactments for preventing such acts at the latest within five years of the ratification of the present Convention.

Article 22

In the case of operations of war between the land and sea forces of belligerents, the provisions of the present Convention are only applicable to the forces on board ship.

Article 23

The present Convention shall be ratified as soon as possible.

The ratifications shall be deposited at The Hague.

The first deposit of ratifications shall be recorded in a Protocol signed by the Representatives of the Powers which take part therein and by the Netherland Minister for Foreign Affairs.

The subsequent deposits of ratifications shall be made by means of a written notification, addressed to the Netherland Government and accompanied by the instrument of ratification.

A duly certified copy of the Protocol relating to the first deposit of ratifications, of the notifications mentioned in the preceding paragraph, and of the instruments of ratification, shall be immediately sent by the Netherland Government through the diplomatic channel to the Powers invited to the Second Peace Conference, as well as to the other Powers which have acceded to the Convention. The said Government shall, in the cases contemplated in the preceding paragraph, inform them at the same time of the date on which it received the notification.

Article 24

Non-Signatory Powers which have accepted the Geneva Convention of July 6, 1906, may accede to the present Convention.

A Power which desires to accede notifies its intention in writing to the Netherland Government, forwarding to it the act of accession, which shall be deposited in the archives of the said Government.

The said Government shall immediately forward to all the other Powers a duly certified copy of the notification, as well as of the act of accession, mentioning the date on which it received the notification.

Article 25

The present Convention, duly ratified, shall replace, as between Contracting Powers, the Convention of July 29, 1899, for the adaptation to naval warfare of the principles of the Geneva Convention.

The Convention of 1899 remains in force as between the Powers which signed it but which do not also ratify the present Convention.

Article 26

The present Convention shall take effect, in the case of the Powers which were parties to the first deposit of ratifications, sixty days after the date of the Protocol recording such deposit, and, in the case of the Powers which shall ratify subsequently or which shall accede, sixty days after the notification of their ratification or of their accession has been received by the Netherland Government.

Article 27

In the event of one of the Contracting Powers wishing to denounce the present Convention, the denunciation shall be notified in writing to the Netherland Government, which shall immediately communicate a duly certified copy of the notification to all the other Powers, informing them of the date on which it was received.

The denunciation shall only operate in respect of the denouncing Power, and only on the expiry of one year after the notification has reached the Netherland Government.

Article 28

A register kept by the Netherland Ministry for Foreign Affairs shall record the date of the deposit of ratifications effected in virtue of Article 23, paragraphs 3 and 4, as well as the date on which the notifications of accession (Article 24, paragraph 2) or of denunciation (Article 27, paragraph 1) have been received.

Each Contracting Power is entitled to have access to this register and to be supplied with duly certified extracts from it.

In faith whereof the Plenipotentiaries have appended their signatures to the present Convention.

Done at The Hague, October 18, 1907, in a single original, which shall remain deposited in the archives of the Netherland Government, and of which duly certified copies shall be sent, through the diplomatic channel, to the Powers invited to the Second Peace Conference.

---