When infractions of the foregoing rules take place, the guilty persons should be punished, after trial, by the belligerent within whose power they are.
84. Persons violating the laws of war are punishable in such way as the penal law of the country may prescribe.
But this mode of repressing acts contrary to the laws of war being only applicable when the guilty person can be reached, the injured party has no resource other than the use of reprisals when the guilty person cannot be reached, if the acts committed are sufficiently serious to render it urgently necessary to impress respect for the law upon the enemy. Reprisals, the occasional necessity of which is to be deplored, are an exceptional practice, at variance with the general principles that the innocent must not suffer for the guilty, and that every belligerent ought to conform to the laws of war, even without reciprocity on the part of the enemy. The right to use reprisals is tempered by the following restrictions:—
85. Reprisals are forbidden whenever the wrong which has afforded ground of complaint has been repaired.
86. In the grave cases in which reprisals become an imperative necessity, their nature and scope must never exceed the measure of the infraction of the laws of war committed by the enemy.
They can only be made with the authorization of the commander in chief.
They must, in all cases, be consistent with the rules of humanity and morality.
APPENDIX III
CONFERENCE AT BRUSSELS, 1874, ON THE RULES OF MILITARY WARFARE[498]