PART IV Execution of the Convention
SECTION I General Provisions
Article 142 Relief societies and other organizations
Article 143
Supervision
Article 144 Dissemination of the Convention
Article 145
Translations. Rules of application
Article 146 Penal sanctions: I.
General observations
Article 147 II. Grave breaches
Article 148 Ill.
Responsibilities of the Contracting Parties
Article 149 Enquiry procedure
SECTION II Final Provisions
Article 150 Languages
Article 151 Signature
Article 152
Ratification
Article 153 Coming into force
Article 154 Relation with
the Hague Conventions
Article 155 Accession
Article 156 Notification
of accessions
Article 157 Immediate effect
Article 158 Denunciation
Article 159 Registration with the United Nations
Section I. General Provisions
Art. 142. Subject to the measures which the Detaining Powers may consider
essential to ensure their security or to meet any other reasonable need, the
representatives of religious organizations, relief societies, or any other
organizations assisting the protected persons, shall receive from these
Powers, for themselves or their duly accredited agents, all facilities for
visiting the protected persons, for distributing relief supplies and
material from any source, intended for educational, recreational or
religious purposes, or for assisting them in organizing their leisure time
within the places of internment. Such societies or organizations may be
constituted in the territory of the Detaining Power, or in any other
country, or they may have an international character.
The Detaining Power may limit the number of societies and organizations
whose delegates are allowed to carry out their activities in its territory
and under its supervision, on condition, however, that such limitation shall
not hinder the supply of effective and adequate relief to all protected
persons.
The special position of the International Committee of the Red Cross in
this field shall be recognized and respected at all times.
Art. 143. Representatives or delegates of the Protecting Powers shall
have permission to go to all places where protected persons are,
particularly to places of internment, detention and work.
They shall have access to all premises occupied by protected persons and
shall be able to interview the latter without witnesses, personally or
through an interpreter.
Such visits may not be prohibited except for reasons of imperative
military necessity, and then only as an exceptional and temporary measure.
Their duration and frequency shall not be restricted.
Such representatives and delegates shall have full liberty to select the
places they wish to visit. The Detaining or Occupying Power, the Protecting
Power and when occasion arises the Power of origin of the persons to be
visited, may agree that compatriots of the internees shall be permitted to
participate in the visits.
The delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross shall also
enjoy the above prerogatives. The appointment of such delegates shall be
submitted to the approval of the Power governing the territories where they
will carry out their duties.
Art. 144. The High Contracting Parties undertake, in time of peace as in
time of war, to disseminate the text of the present Convention as widely as
possible in their respective countries, and, in particular, to include the
study thereof in their programmes of military and, if possible, civil
instruction, so that the principles thereof may become known to the entire
population.
Any civilian, military, police or other authorities, who in time of war
assume responsibilities in respect of protected persons, must possess the
text of the Convention and be specially instructed as to its provisions.
Art. 145. The High Contracting Parties shall communicate to one another
through the Swiss Federal Council and, during hostilities, through the
Protecting Powers, the official translations of the present Convention, as
well as the laws and regulations which they may adopt to ensure the
application thereof.
Art. 146. The High Contracting Parties undertake to enact any legislation
necessary to provide effective penal sanctions for persons committing, or
ordering to be committed, any of the grave breaches of the present
Convention defined in the following Article.
Each High Contracting Party shall be under the obligation to search for
persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such
grave breaches, and shall bring such persons, regardless of their
nationality, before its own courts. It may also, if it prefers, and in
accordance with the provisions of its own legislation, hand such persons
over for trial to another High Contracting Party concerned, provided such
High Contracting Party has made out a prima facie case.
Each High Contracting Party shall take measures necessary for the
suppression of all acts contrary to the provisions of the present Convention
other than the grave breaches defined in the following Article.
In all circumstances, the accused persons shall benefit by safeguards of
proper trial and defence, which shall not be less favourable than those
provided by Article 105 and those following of the Geneva Convention
relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of 12 August 1949. Art. 147.
Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those
involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or
property protected by the present Convention: wilful killing, torture or
inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, wilfully causing great
suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or
transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a
protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power, or wilfully
depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial
prescribed in the present Convention, taking of hostages and extensive
destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military
necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.
Art. 148. No High Contracting Party shall be allowed to absolve itself or
any other High Contracting Party of any liability incurred by itself or by
another High Contracting Party in respect of breaches referred to in the
preceding Article.
Art. 149. At the request of a Party to the conflict, an enquiry shall be
instituted, in a manner to be decided between the interested Parties,
concerning any alleged violation of the Convention.
If agreement has not been reached concerning the procedure for the
enquiry, the Parties should agree on the choice of an umpire who will decide
upon the procedure to be followed.
Once the violation has been established, the Parties to the conflict
shall put an end to it and shall repress it with the least possible delay.
Section II. Final Provisions
Art. 150. The present Convention is established in English and in French.
Both texts are equally authentic.
The Swiss Federal Council shall arrange for official translations of the
Convention to be made in the Russian and Spanish languages.
Art. 151. The present Convention, which bears the date of this day, is
open to signature until 12 February 1950, in the name of the Powers
represented at the Conference which opened at Geneva on 21 April 1949.
Art. 152. The present Convention shall be ratified as soon as possible
and the ratifications shall be deposited at Berne.
A record shall be drawn up of the deposit of each instrument of
ratification and certified copies of this record shall be transmitted by the
Swiss Federal Council to all the Powers in whose name the Convention has
been signed, or whose accession has been notified.
Art. 153. The present Convention shall come into force six months after
not less than two instruments of ratification have been deposited.
Thereafter, it shall come into force for each High Contracting Party six
months after the deposit of the instrument of ratification.
Art. 154. In the relations between the Powers who are bound by the Hague
Conventions respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, whether that of
29 July 1899, or that of 18 October 1907, and who are parties to the present
Convention, this last Convention shall be supplementary to Sections II and
III of the Regulations annexed to the above-mentioned Conventions of The
Hague.
Art. 155. From the date of its coming into force, it shall be open to any
Power in whose name the present Convention has not been signed, to accede to
this Convention.
Art. 156. Accessions shall be notified in writing to the Swiss Federal
Council, and shall take effect six months after the date on which they are
received.
The Swiss Federal Council shall communicate the accessions to all the
Powers in whose name the Convention has been signed, or whose accession has
been notified.
Art. 157. The situations provided for in Articles 2 and 3 shall effective
immediate effect to ratifications deposited and accessions notified by the
Parties to the conflict before or after the beginning of hostilities or
occupation. The Swiss Federal Council shall communicate by the quickest
method any ratifications or accessions received from Parties to the
conflict.
Art. 158. Each of the High Contracting Parties shall be at liberty to
denounce the present Convention.
The denunciation shall be notified in writing to the Swiss Federal
Council, which shall transmit it to the Governments of all the High
Contracting Parties.
The denunciation shall take effect one year after the notification
thereof has been made to the Swiss Federal Council. However, a denunciation
of which notification has been made at a time when the denouncing Power is
involved in a conflict shall not take effect until peace has been concluded,
and until after operations connected with release, repatriation and
re-establishment of the persons protected by the present Convention have
been terminated.
The denunciation shall have effect only in respect of the denouncing
Power. It shall in no way impair the obligations which the Parties to the
conflict shall remain bound to fulfil by virtue of the principles of the law
of nations, as they result from the usages established among civilized
peoples, from the laws of humanity and the dictates of the public
conscience.
Art. 159. The Swiss Federal Council shall register the present Convention
with the Secretariat of the United Nations. The Swiss Federal Council shall
also inform the Secretariat of the United Nations of all ratifications,
accessions and denunciations received by it with respect to the present
Convention.
In witness whereof the undersigned, having deposited their respective
full powers, have signed the present Convention.
Done at Geneva this twelfth day of August 1949, in the English and French
languages. The original shall be deposited in the Archives of the Swiss
Confederation. The Swiss Federal Council shall transmit certified copies
thereof to each of the signatory and acceding States.
