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Signalling and Identification of Medical Personnel and Material

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2010

Frédéric de Mulinen
Frédéric de Mulinen*
Affiliation:
Head of Division, International Committee of the Red Cross
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Extract

At its second session, which it held in Geneva in May 1972, the Conference of Government Experts on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts (Commission I) prepared draft articles on medical air transport and an annex relating to their signalling and identification, which were to be embodied in a future legal instrument. The Commission also recommended that a closer study be made of medical transport at sea and on land. If these suggestions were to lead to a draft instrument, it would be imperative to have a general plan which, in the case of signalling, would extend to all medical personnel and material, whether civilian or military.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of the Red Cross (1961 - 1997) , Volume 12 , Issue 138 , September 1972 , pp. 479 - 494
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 1972

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References

1 Report on the Work of the Conference, Geneva 1972, Volume I, Report of Commission I, pp. 31–60.Google Scholar

2 The term “material” includes medical buildings, installations, transports, equipment and stores.

3 Pictet, Jean S., Commentary on the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, Geneva 1952–1959, Volume I, p. 324.Google Scholar

4 Pictet, , op. cit., p. 308.Google Scholar

5 The First Convention goes so far as to provide for two different armlets, a normal armlet for permanent medical personnel and “a white armlet bearing in its centre the distinctive sign in miniature” for temporary medical personnel (Article 41).

6 The term “patient” covers the wounded and the sick. It also comprises persons rescued from shipwreck if wounded or sick.

7 In the circumstances, it is unrealistic to believe there can be a distinction between the usual armlet and the armlet bearing “the distinctive sign in miniature” for temporary medical personnel.

8 Another term frequently used for describing a dressing station is “clearing station”, and for field hospital “evacuation hospital”.

9 The future air hospital, still in the blueprint stage, would be equivalent to the hospital ship.

10 Draft Articles 25 and 26 ( Report, pp. 46 and 47).Google Scholar

11 For medical aircraft, Commission I recommended three signals at present considered valid: a unilateral signal by means of a flashing blue light and, as bilateral signals, radiophonic communication on a special medical frequency and the secondary surveillance radar system ( Report, Annex II, p. 53).Google Scholar

12 “Respondent” is used here in a general sense and should not be confused with the radar equipment known as “transponder” on board aircraft or ships.

13 Draft Article 27 (3) ( Report, p. 48 Google Scholar) and Annex II, Chapter I ( Report, p. 53 Google Scholar).

14 Draft Articles 25 and 26 ( Report, pp. 46 and 47).Google Scholar