Treatment of the Dead.
§ 205a. After each engagement both belligerents must, so far as military interests permit, take measures to ensure the dead protection against pillage and maltreatment, and they must see that the burial, whether by land or sea, or cremation of the dead is preceded by a careful examination of the corpses in order to determine that life is really extinct (article 16). Each belligerent must, as early as possible, send to the authorities of their country, navy, or army, the military identification marks or tokens found on the dead; they must also collect all the objects of personal use, valuables, letters, &c., which have been left by the wounded and sick who die in hospital, in order that they may be forwarded to the persons concerned by the authorities of their own country (article 17).
Hospital Ships.
§ 206. Three different kinds of hospital ships must be distinguished—namely, military hospital ships, hospital ships equipped by private individuals or relief societies of the belligerents, and hospital ships equipped by private neutral individuals and neutral relief societies.
(1) Military hospital ships (article 1) are ships constructed or assigned by States specially and solely for the purpose of assisting the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked. Their names must be communicated to the belligerents at the commencement of or during hostilities, and in any case before they are employed. They must be respected by the belligerents, they may not be captured while hostilities last, and they are not on the same footing as men-of-war during their stay in a neutral port.
(2) Hospital ships equipped wholly or in part at the cost of private individuals or officially recognised relief societies of the belligerents must be respected by either belligerent (article 2), and are exempt from capture, provided their home State has given them an official commission and has notified their names to the other belligerent at the commencement of or during hostilities, and in any case before they are employed. They must, further, be furnished with a certificate from the competent authorities declaring that they had been under the latter's control while fitting out and on final departure.
(3) Hospital ships, equipped wholly or in part at the cost of private individuals or officially recognised relief societies of neutral States (article 3), must likewise be respected, and are exempt from capture, provided that they are placed under the control of one of the belligerents, with the previous consent of their own Government and with the authorisation of the belligerent himself, and that the latter has notified their names to his adversary at the commencement of, or during, hostilities, and in any case before they are employed.
According to article 4 all military and other hospital ships must afford relief and assistance to the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked of either belligerent. The respective Governments are prohibited from using these ships for any military purpose. The commanders of these vessels must not in any way hamper the movements of the combatants, and during and after an engagement they act at their own risk and peril. Both belligerents have a right to control and visit all military and other hospital ships, to refuse their assistance, to order them off, to make them take a certain course, to put a commissioner on board, and, lastly, to detain them temporarily, if important circumstances require this. In case a hospital ship receives orders from a belligerent, these orders must, as far as possible, be inscribed in the ship papers.
The protection to which hospital ships are entitled ceases if they are made use of to commit acts harmful to the enemy[415] (article 8). But the fact of the staff being armed for the purpose of maintaining order and defending the wounded and sick, and the fact of the presence of wireless telegraphic apparatus on board, are not sufficient reasons for withdrawing protection.
[415] An interesting case of this kind occurred during the Russo-Japanese war. The Aryol (also called the Orel), a hospital ship of the Russian Red Cross Society, was captured, and afterwards condemned by the Prize Court on the following grounds:—(a) For having communicated the orders of the commander-in-chief of the Russian squadron with which she was sailing to other Russian vessels; (b) for carrying, by order of the commander-in-chief of the squadron, in order to take them to Vladivostock, the master and some members of the crew of the British steamship Oldhamia, which had been captured by the Russians; (c) for having been instructed to purchase in Cape Town, or its neighbourhood, 11,000 ft. of conducting wire of good insulation; (d) for having navigated at the head of the squadron in the position usually occupied by reconnoitring vessels.—See Takahashi, pp. 620-625, and Higgins, op. cit. p. 74, and in The Law Quarterly Review, XXVI. (1910), p. 408.