Humanitarian Legal Regulation of Employment of Hospital Ships under Modern Conditions

The article deals with some problematic issues of using hospital ships for transporting the wounded, sick and shipwrecked under the conditions of an armed conflict at sea.A retrospective analysis refers to emergence and development of legal norms governing the use of hospital ships during armed conflicts. Particular attention is paid to regulation by the standards of international humanitarian law of the issues of protection of hospital vessels from attacks and capture, transport of certain categories of persons and cargo followed by a review of the relevant international legal norms and of the practices of individual states in matters of transporting the wounded and sick, as well as of providing them with medical care at sea. A particular task was to get Journal’s audience acquainted with the review of the selected legal commentaries of ICRS on the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea of August 12, 1949 (GC II) and some other provisions of the relevant international humanitarian treaties in the field of hospital ships. The commentaries first ever published in Russian were selected, structured, and additionally elaborated by the author according to the concept of the article, as well as supplemented by the references to the results of modern research.Based on a study of modern realities, the conclusion is substantiated about the sufficiency of the existing norms of international humanitarian law and the obvious need for adequate use of their potential in relation to the conditions of our times.