Projectiles diffusing Asphyxiating or Deleterious Gases.
§ 113. The First Hague Peace Conference also adopted a Declaration, signed on July 29, 1899, by sixteen States—namely, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Mexico, France, Greece, Montenegro, Holland, Persia, Portugal, Roumania, Russia, Siam, Sweden-Norway, Turkey and Bulgaria—stipulating that the signatory Powers should in a war between two or more of them abstain from the use of projectiles the sole object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases. Austria-Hungary, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxemburg, Nicaragua, Servia, Switzerland, and Great Britain acceded later.
Violence directed from Air-Vessels.
§ 114. The First Hague Peace Conference adopted likewise a Declaration, signed on July 29, 1899, prohibiting for a term of five years the launching of projectiles or explosives from balloons or other kinds of aerial vessels. The Second Peace Conference, on October 18, 1907, renewed this Declaration up to the close of the Third Peace Conference, but out of twenty-seven States which signed the Declaration only seven—namely, Great Britain, the United States of America, China, Holland, Bolivia, Salvador, Haiti (Nicaragua acceded later)—ratified it, and Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Russia—not to mention smaller Powers—did not even sign it. There is, therefore, no doubt that the Third Peace Conference will not renew the Declaration. Although it is very much to be regretted, the fact must be taken into consideration that in future violence directed from air-vessels will play a great part in war. For this reason, the question as to the conditions under which such violence is admissible, is of importance,[240] but it is as yet impossible to give a satisfactory answer. The Institute of International Law, at its meeting at Madrid in 1911, adopted the principle[241] that aerial warfare must not comprise greater danger to the person and the property of the peaceful population than land or sea warfare. However this may be, there can be no doubt that the general principles laid down in the Declaration of St. Petersburg of 1868, in the two Declarations, adopted by the First Peace Conference, concerning expanding bullets and projectiles diffusing asphyxiating or deleterious gases, in the Hague rules concerning land warfare, and the like, must find application as regards violence directed from air vessels.
[240] See, besides the literature quoted above, [vol. I. p. 237, note 1,] Mérignhac, pp. 198-209; Bonfils, Nos. 14404-144021; Despagnet, No. 721 bis; Meyer, Die Luftschiffahrt in kriegsrechtlicher Beleuchtung (1909); Philet, La guerre aérienne (1910); Nys, Fauchille, and Bar in Annuaire, XIX. (1902), pp. 58-114, XXIV. (1911), pp. 23-126; Fauchille in R.G. VIII. (1901), pp. 414-485.
[241] See Annuaire, XXIV. (1911), p. 346.
Violence against non-combatant Members of Armed Forces.
§ 115. It will be remembered from above, § [79], that numerous individuals belong to armed forces without being combatants. Now, since and in so far as these non-combatant members of armed forces do not take part in the fighting, they may not directly be attacked and killed or wounded. However, they are exposed to all injuries indirectly resulting from the operations of warfare. And, with the exception of the personnel[242] engaged in the interest of the wounded, such as doctors, chaplains, persons employed in military hospitals, official ambulance men, who, according to articles 9 and 10 of the Geneva Convention, are specially privileged, such non-combatant members of armed forces may certainly be made prisoners, since the assistance they give to the fighting forces may be of great importance.
Violence against Private Enemy Persons.