ICRC databases on international humanitarian law
  • Print page
Part II: Rules of Air Warfare#Chapter IV: Hostilities#Bombardment. - Art. 26.
    Art. 26. The following special rules have been adopted to permit the States to ensure a more efficient protection of monuments of great historic value situated on their territory provided they are disposed to abstain from using for military purposes not only such monuments and also the area surrounding them and to accept a special system for control to this end.

    1. A State, if it deems it suitable, may establish a protected area around such monuments situated on its territory. In time of war, such areas shall be sheltered form bombardments;

    2. Monuments around which such area is to be established, shall already be, in time of peace, the object of a notification addressed to the other Powers through the diplomatic channel; the notification shall also state the limits of such areas. This notification cannot be revoked in time of war;

    3. The protected area may include, in addition to the space occupied by the monument or the group of monuments, a surrounding zone, the width of which may not exceed 500 metres from the periphery of the said space;

    4. Marks well visible from the aircraft, both by day and by night, shall be employed to enable the belligerent aeronauts to identify the limits of the areas;

    5. The marks placed on the monuments themselves shall be those mentioned in Article 25. The marks employed to indicate the areas surrounding the monuments shall be fixed by every State which accepts the provisions of this Article and shall be notified to the other Powers together with the list of the monuments and areas;

    6. Every improper use of the marks referred to in paragraph 5 shall be considered an act of perfidy;

    7. A State which accepts the provisions of this Article should abstain from making use of the historic monuments and the zone surrounding them for military purposes or for the benefit of its military organization in any manner whatsoever and should also abstain from committing, in the interior of such monument or within such zone, any act for military purposes;

    8. A commission of control, composed of three neutral representatives accredited to the State which has accepted the provisions of the present Article, or of their delegates, shall be appointed for the purpose of ascertaining that no violation of the provisions of Paragraph 7 has been committed. One of the members of this commission of control shall be the representative, or his delegate, of the State which has been entrusted with the interests of the other belligerent.


<< Previous     Up     Next >>