§ 27. — Offending vessels to show nationality.
[Laws in effect as of January 24, 2002]
[Document not affected by Public Laws enacted between
January 24, 2002 and December 19, 2002]
[CITE: 47USC27]
TITLE 47--TELEGRAPHS, TELEPHONES, AND RADIOTELEGRAPHS
CHAPTER 2--SUBMARINE CABLES
Sec. 27. Offending vessels to show nationality
Any person having the custody of the papers necessary for the
preparation of the statements provided for in article 10 of the said
convention with respect to reports of infractions, by officers
commanding vessels of war or vessels especially commissioned, who shall
refuse to exhibit them or shall violently resist persons having
authority according to article 10 of said convention to draw up
statements of facts in the exercise of their functions, shall be guilty
of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof shall be liable to
imprisonment not exceeding two years, or to a fine not exceeding $5,000,
or to both fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the court.
(Feb. 29, 1888, ch. 17, Sec. 7, 25 Stat. 42.)
Codification
The original enactment of this section did not contain the words,
``with respect to reports of infractions, by officers commanding vessels
of war or vessels especially commissioned,'' which have been inserted in
view of article 10 of the Convention, referred to in text, and set out
as a note below.
Provision of International Convention
Article 10 of the International Convention for the Protection of
Submarine Cables, made at Paris on May (March) 14, 1884, and proclaimed
by the President of the United States on May 22, 1885, 24 Stat. 996,
referred to in this section, read as follows:
``Evidence of violations of this convention may be obtained by all
methods of securing proof that are allowed by the laws of the country of
the court before which a case has been brought.
``When the officers commanding the vessels of war or the vessels
specially commissioned for that purpose, of one of the High Contracting
Parties, shall have reason to believe that an infraction of the measures
provided for by this Convention has been committed by a vessel other
than a vessel of war, they may require the captain or master to exhibit
the official documents furnishing evidence of the nationality of the
said vessel. Summary mention of such exhibition shall at once be made on
the documents exhibited.
``Reports may, moreover, be prepared by the said officers, whatever
may be the nationality of the inculpated vessel. These reports shall be
drawn up in the form and in the language in use in the country to which
the officer drawing them up belongs; they may be used as evidence in the
country in which they shall be invoked, and according to the laws of
such country. The accused parties and the witnesses shall have the right
to add or to cause to be added thereto, in their own language, any
explanations that they may deem proper; these declarations shall be duly
signed.''
