Page:Lltreaties-ustbv001.pdf/741

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NEUTRAL POWERS IN NAVAL WAR—OCTOBER 18, 1907
731
The President of the United States of Venezuela:

Mr. José Gil Fortoul, Chargé d'Affaires of the Republic at Berlin.

Who, after having deposited their full powers, found in good and due form, have agreed upon the following provisions:

Article 1

Belligerents are bound to respect the sovereign rights of neutral Powers and to abstain, in neutral territory or neutral waters, from any act which would, if knowingly permitted by any Power, constitute a violation of neutrality.

Article 2

Any act of hostility, including capture and the exercise of the right of search, committed by belligerent war-ships in the territorial waters of a neutral Power, constitutes a violation of neutrality and is strictly forbidden.

Article 3[1]

When a ship has been captured in the territorial waters of a neutral Power, this Power must employ, if the prize is still within its jurisdiction, the means at its disposal to release the prize with its officers and crew, and to intern the prizecrew.

If the prize is not in the jurisdiction of the neutral Power, the captor Government, on the demand of that Power, must liberate the prize with its officers and crew.

Article 4

A Prize Court cannot be set up by a belligerent on neutral territory or on a vessel in neutral waters.

Article 5

Belligerents are forbidden to use neutral ports and waters as a base of naval operations against their adversaries, and in particular to erect wireless telegraphy stations or any apparatus for the purpose of communicating with the belligerent forces on land or sea.

Article 6

The supply, in any manner, directly or indirectly, by a neutral Power to a belligerent Power, of war-ships, ammunition, or war material of any kind whatever, is forbidden.


  1. For text of an understanding contained in the Senate's resolution of advice and consent to adherence and maintained in the President's declaration of adherence, see footnote 1, p. 723.