Chapter XLI: Part III: Penal Sanction

When infractions of the foregoing rules take place, the guilty
persons should be punished, after trial, by the belligerent within
whose power they are.

84. Persons violating the laws of war are punishable in such way as the penal law of the country may prescribe.

But this mode of repressing acts contrary to the laws of war being
only applicable when the guilty person can be reached, the injured
party has no resource other than the use of reprisals when the
guilty person cannot be reached, if the acts committed are
sufficiently serious to render it urgently necessary to impress
respect for the law upon the enemy. Reprisals, the occasional
necessity of which is to be deplored, are an exceptional practice,
at variance with the general principles that the innocent must not
suffer for the guilty, and that every belligerent ought to conform
to the laws of war, even without reciprocity on the part of the
enemy. The right to use reprisals is tempered by the following
restrictions:--

85. Reprisals are forbidden whenever the wrong which has afforded ground of complaint has been repaired.

86. In the grave cases in which reprisals become an imperative necessity, their nature and scope must never exceed the measure of the infraction of the laws of war committed by the enemy.

They can only be made with the authorization of the commander in chief.

They must, in all cases, be consistent with the rules of humanity and morality.

APPENDIX III

CONFERENCE AT BRUSSELS, 1874, ON THE RULES OF MILITARY WARFARE[498]