Protective sign

The misuse of protective signs is a violation of international humanitarian law and punishable under the national law of all countries who are state parties to the respective treaties. Using protective signs in order to injure, kill, or capture the enemy (perfidy) is a war crime.

List of protective signs

The following signs have a protective meaning under certain conditions:

• the Red Cross as well as the equivalent signs of the Red Crescent and Red Crystal, to be used to mark all persons and objects under the protection of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their additional protocols of 1977
• a blue triangle on orange ground as the international distinctive sign of civil defense; to be used to mark the personnel and objects of civil defense organizations
• the letters "PG" or "PW" to mark a prisoner of war camp and the letters "IC" to mark an internment camp for civilians
• an oblique red band on a white ground to mark hospitals and safety zones
• the white flag; used to designate unarmed parliamentaries (negotiators, along with their flag bearer and optional drummer) asking for a truce or ceasefire, or to symbolise surrender
• the emblem of the United Nations as well as the letters "UN"; to be used to mark the personnel and materiel of UN Peacekeeping missions
• the distinctive mark of the Roerich Pact for the identification of historic monuments, museums, scientific, artistic, educational and cultural institutions (such as universities, theatres, and ancient monuments)
• the distinctive marking of cultural property, to be used to mark "movable or immovable property of great importance to the cultural heritage of every people"; and the triple use of that sign to mark cultural property under special protection, including "refuges intended to shelter movable cultural property" (e.g. paintings, sculptures and texts) and "immovable cultural property of very great importance" (such as the Royal Observatory or the Taj Mahal)
• the special sign used to facilitate the identification of "works and installations containing dangerous forces" (dams, dikes and nuclear electrical generating stations), consisting of three bright orange circles placed on the same axis

Of these symbols, the distinctive flag of the Roerich Pact was superseded by the distinctive marking of cultural property as defined by the Hague Convention of 1954. As all countries bound by the Washington Treaty of 1935 have ratified the convention of 1954, it is effectively out of use.