It must be specially observed that, according to article 12, any man-of-war of either belligerent may demand from merchant ships, yachts, and boats, whatever the nationality of such vessels, the surrender of the wounded, sick, or shipwrecked who are on board.
According to the reservation of Great Britain, mentioned above in § 206, article 12 is understood "to apply only to the case of combatants rescued during or after a naval engagement in which they have taken part."
The Religious, Medical, and Hospital Staff.
§ 209. The religious, medical, and hospital staff of any captured vessel is inviolable, and the members may not be made prisoners of war, but they must continue to discharge their duties while necessary. If they do this, the belligerent into whose hands they have fallen has to give them the same allowances and the same pay as are granted to persons holding the same rank in his own navy. They may leave the ship, when the commander-in-chief considers it possible, and on leaving they are allowed to take with them all surgical articles and instruments which are their private property (article 10).
Application of Convention X., and Prevention of Abuses.
§ 209a. The provisions of Convention X. are only binding in the case of war between contracting Powers, they cease to be binding the moment a non-contracting Power becomes one of the belligerents (article 18). In the case of operations of war between land and sea forces of belligerents, the provisions of Convention X. only apply to forces on board ship (article 22). The commanders-in-chief of the belligerent fleets must, in accordance with the instructions of their Governments and in conformity with the general principles of the Convention, arrange the details for carrying out the articles of Convention X., as well as for cases not provided for in these articles (article 19). The contracting parties must take the necessary measures to instruct their naval forces, especially the personnel protected by Convention X., in the provisions of the Convention, and to bring these provisions to the notice of the public (article 20). The contracting Powers must, in case their criminal laws are inadequate, enact measures necessary for checking, in time of war, individual acts of pillage or maltreatment of the wounded and sick in the fleet, as well as for punishing, as unjustifiable adoption of military or naval marks, the unauthorised use of the distinctive signs mentioned in article 5 on the part of vessels not protected by the present Convention; they must communicate to each other, through the Dutch Government, the enactments for preventing such acts at the latest within five years of the ratification of Convention X.[418] (article 21).
[418] Great Britain has entered a reservation against articles 6 and 21, but see above, § [124b, p. 164, note 1].
General Provisions of Convention X.
§ 209b. Convention X. comes into force sixty days after ratification or accession on the part of each Power concerned (article 26). It replaces the Convention of 1899 for the adaptation to naval warfare of the principles of the Geneva Convention, but this latter Convention remains in force between such of its contracting parties as do not become parties to Convention X. (article 25). Such non-signatory Powers of Convention X. as are parties to the Geneva Convention of 1906 are free to accede at any time, and a Power desiring to accede must notify its intention in writing to the Dutch Government which must communicate the accession to all the contracting Powers (article 24). Each of the contracting Powers is at any time at liberty to denounce Convention X. by a written notification to the Dutch Government which must immediately communicate the notification to all the other contracting Powers; the denunciation, however, does not take effect until one year after the notification has reached the Dutch Government, and a denunciation only affects the Power making the notification (article 27). A register kept by the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs must record the dates of the deposit of ratifications, as well as the dates of accessions or of denunciations; each contracting Power is entitled to have access to this register and to be supplied with duly certified extracts from it (article 28).