CHAPTER VIII
Prevention of Abuses and Infractions
Article 27
The Signatory Governments, in countries the legislation of which is not at present adequate for the purpose, undertake to adopt or to propose to their legislative bodies such measures as may be necessary to prevent at all times the employment of the emblem or the name of Red Cross or Geneva Cross by private individuals or by societies other than those which are entitled to do so under the present Convention, and in particular for commercial purposes as a trade-mark or trading mark.
The prohibition of the employment of the emblem or the names in question shall come into operation from the date fixed by each legislature, and at the latest five years after the present Convention comes into force. From that date it shall no longer be lawful to adopt a trade-mark or trading mark contrary to this prohibition.
Article 28
The Signatory Governments also undertake to adopt, or to propose to their legislative bodies, should their military law be insufficient for the purpose, the measures necessary for the repression in time of war of individual acts of pillage and maltreatment of the wounded and sick of armies, as well as for the punishment, as an unlawful employment of military insignia, of the improper use of the Red Cross flag and armlet (brassard) by officers and soldiers or private individuals not protected by the present Convention.
They shall communicate to one another, through the Swiss Federal Council, the provisions relative to these measures of repression at the latest within five years from the ratification of the present Convention.
General Provisions
Article 29
The present Convention shall be ratified as soon as possible. The ratifications shall be deposited at Berne.
When each ratification is deposited a procès verbal shall be drawn up, and a copy thereof certified as correct shall be forwarded through the diplomatic channel to all the Contracting Powers.
Article 30
The present Convention shall come into force for each Power six months after the date of the deposit of its ratification.
Article 31
The present Convention, duly ratified, shall replace the Convention of August 22nd, 1864, in relations between the Contracting States. The Convention of 1864 remains in force between such of the parties who signed it who may not likewise ratify the present Convention.
Article 32
The present Convention may be signed until December 31st next by the Powers represented at the Conference, which was opened at Geneva on June 11, 1906, as also by the Powers, not represented at that Conference, which signed the Convention of 1864.
Such of the aforesaid Powers as shall have not signed the present Convention by December 31st, 1906, shall remain free to accede to it subsequently. They shall notify their accession by means of a written communication addressed to the Swiss Federal Council, and communicated by the latter to all the Contracting Powers.
Other Powers may apply to accede in the same manner, but their request shall only take effect if within a period of one year from the notification of it to the Federal Council no objection to it reaches the Council from any of the Contracting Powers.
Article 33
Each of the Contracting Powers shall be at liberty to denounce the present Convention. The denunciation shall not take effect until one year after the written notification of it has reached the Swiss Federal Council. The Council shall immediately communicate the notification to all the other Contracting Parties.
The denunciation shall only affect the Power which has notified it.