14, shall apply to railway trains and vessels intended for interior navigation which have been especially equipped for evacuation purposes, as well as to the ordinary vehicles, trains, and vessels which belong to the sanitary service.

Military vehicles, with their teams, other than those belonging to the sanitary service, may be captured.

The civil personnel and the various means of transportation obtained by requisition, including railway material and vessels utilized for convoys, are subject to the general rules of international law.

Chapter VI-Distinctive emblems

Art. 18. Out of respect to Switzerland the heraldic emblem of the red cross on a white ground, formed by the reversal of the federal colors, is continued as the emblem and distinctive sign of the sanitary service of armies.

Art. 19. This emblem appears on the flags and brassards as well as upon all matériel appertaining to the sanitary service, with the permission of the competent military authority.

Art. 20. The personnel protected in virtue of the first paragraph of Article 9, and articles 10 and 11, will wear attached to the left arm a brassard bearing a red cross on a white ground, which will be issued and stamped by competent military authority, and accompanied by a certificate of identity in the case of persons attached to the sanitary service of armies who do not have military uniform.

Art. 21. The distinctive flag of the convention can only be displayed over the sanitary formations and establishments which the convention provides shall be respected, and with the consent of the military authorities. It shall be accompanied by the national flag of the belligerents to whose service the formation or establishment is attached.

Sanitary formations which have fallen into the power of the enemy, however, shall fly no other flag than that of the Red Cross so long as they continue in that situation.

Art. 22. The sanitary formations of neutral countries which, under the conditions set forth in article 11, have been authorized to render their services, shall fly, with the flag of the convention, the national flag of the belligerent to which they are attached. The provisions of the second paragraph of the preceding article are applicable to them.

Art. 23. The emblem of the red cross on a white ground and the words Red Cross or Geneva Cross may only be used, whether in time of peace or war, to protect or designate sanitary formations and establishments, the personnel and matériel protected by the convention.

Chapter VII-Application and execution of the convention

Art. 24. The provisions of the present convention are obligatory only on the contracting powers, in case of war between two or more of them.

The said provisions shall cease to be obligatory if one of the belligerent powers should not be signatory to the convention.

Art. 25. It shall be the duties of the commanders in chief of the belligerent armies to provide for the details of execution of the foregoing articles, as well as for unforeseen cases, in accordance with the instructions of their respective governments, and conformably to the gen eral principles of this convention.

Art. 26. The signatory governments shall take the necessary steps to acquaint their troops, and particularly the protected personnel, with the provisions of this convention and to make them known to the people at large.

Chapter VIII-Repression of abuses and infractions

Art. 27. The signatory powers whose legislation may not now be adequate engage to take or recommend to their legislatures such measures as may be necessary to prevent the use, by private persons or by societies other than those upon which this convention confers the right thereto, of the emblem or name of the Red Cross or Geneva Cross, particularly for commercial purposes by means of trade-marks or commercial labels.

The prohibition of the emblem or name in question shall take effect from the time set in each act of legislation, and at the latest five years after this convention goes into effect. After such going into effect, it shall be unlawful to use a trade-mark or commercial label contrary to such prohibition.

Art. 28. In the event of their military penal laws being insufficient, the signatory governments also engage to take or to recommend to their legislatures, the necessary measures to repress, in time of war, individual acts of robbery and ill treatment of the sick and wounded of the armies, as well as to punish, as usurpations of military insignia, the wrongful use of the flag and brassard of the Red Cross by military persons or private individuals not protected by the present convention.

They will communicate to each other through the Swiss Federal Council the measures taken with a view to such repression, not later than five years from the ratification of the present convention.

General Provisions

Art. 29. The present convention shall be ratified as soon as possible. The ratifications will be deposited at Berne.

A record of the deposit of each act of ratification shall be prepared, of which a duly certified copy shall be sent, through diplomatic channels, to each of the contracting powers.

Art. 30. The present convention shall become operative, as to each power, six months after the date of deposit of its ratification.

Art. 31. The present convention, when duly ratified, shall supersede the Convention of August 22, 1864, in the relations between the contracting states.

The Convention of 1864 remains in force in the relations between the parties who signed it but who may not also ratify the present convention. Art. 32. The present convention may, until December 31, proximo, be signed by the powers represented at the conference which opened at Geneva on June 11, 1906, as well as by the powers not represented at the conference who have signed the Convention of 1864.

Such of these powers as shall not have signed the present convention on or before December 31, 1906, will remain at liberty to accede to it after that date. They shall signify their adherence in a written notification addressed to the Swiss Federal Council, and communicated to all the contracting powers by the said council.

Other powers may request to adhere in the same manner, but their request shall only be effective if, within the period of one year from its notification to the Federal Council, such Council has not been advised of any opposition on the part of any of the contracting powers.

Art. 33. Each of the contracting parties shall have the right to denounce the present convention. This denunciation shall only become operative one year after a notification in writing shall have been made to the Swiss Federal Council, which shall forthwith communicate such notification to all the other contracting parties.

This denunciation shall only become operative in respect to the power which has given it.

In faith whereof the plenipotentiaries have signed the present convention and affixed their seals thereto.

Done at Geneva, the sixth day of July, one thousand nine hundred and six, in a single copy, which shall remain in the archives of the Swiss Confederation and certified copies of which shall be delivered to the contracting parties through diplomatic channels.

49 U. S. Statutes, 1907 and 1908, Part II, 251

(Signatures) 49

CHAPTER VIII

OTHER RECENT GENERAL WELFARE CON

VENTIONS

At a conference held in Washington in 1907 by plenipotentiaries of the Central American States of Costa Rica, Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, at which Representatives of the United States and Mexico were present, eight Treaties were signed to regulate the relations of these Central American Republics to each other. Perhaps the most important of these Conventions is one providing for the establishment of a Central American Court of Justice with full jurisdiction of all controversies between the States. The powers of the Court are defined as follows:

"Article I. The High Contracting Parties agree by the present Convention to constitute and maintain a permanent tribunal, which shall be called the "Central American Court of Justice," to which they bind themselves to submit all controversies or questions which may arise among them, of whatsoever nature and no matter what their origin may be, in case the respective Departments of Foreign Affairs should not have been able to reach an understanding."

This treaty differs from the Arbitration Treaties entered into between other nations in the very important particular that it gives the Court jurisdiction of controversies involving the "vital interests, the independence, or the honor" of the parties, as well as those "of a legal nature or relating to the interpretation of treaties." The other treaties are designed to promote good relations among the States, but without yielding their separate sovereignty in other respects.1

A Convention was concluded between all the American Republics except Venezuela, Hayti, and the Dominican Republic, at Rio de Janeiro August 13, 1906, establishing the status of naturalized citizens who again take up their residence in the 1 Senate Documents, 2d Session, 61st Congress, 48, 2399.

country of their origin, restoring them to citizenship in the country of their nativity after returning with intent to remain, and presuming such intent after a residence of two years.2

Another Convention was also signed at the same place on August 23, 1906, by Representatives of all the American Republics except Venezuela and Hayti providing for the establishment of an international Commission of Jurists, with duties prescribed as follows:

"Article I. There shall be established an international Commission of Jurists, composed of one representative from each of the signatory States, appointed by each of their respective Governments, which Commission shall meet for the purpose of preparing a draft of a Code of Private International Law and one of Public International Law, regulating the relations between the Nations of America. Two or more Governments may appoint a single representative, but such representative shall have but one vote."3

This Convention does not purport to confer legislative powers on the Commission, or even the powers of plenipotentiaries to make a treaty subject to ratification by the governments, but only to make drafts to be submitted to their govern

ments.

A Convention was signed at Paris May 4, 1910, by Representatives of fourteen European States, the United States and Brazil for the repression of the circulation of obscene publications of which the following is a copy.

ARRANGEMENT RELATIVE TO THE REPRESSION OF THE CIRCULATION
OF OBSCENE PUBLICATIONS

The Governments of the Powers hereinbelow named, equally desirous of facilitating within the scope of their respective legislation, the mutual interchange of information with a view to tracing and repressing offences connected with obscene publications, have resolved to conclude an agreement to that end and have, in consequence, designated their plenipotentiaries who met in conference at Paris from April 18 to May 4, 1910, and agreed on the following provisions:

2 Senate Documents, 3rd Session 62nd Congress, 10, 125.

3 Id. 129.