CHAPTER X 
NATIONALITY OF SHIPS (CONTINUED). TRANSFERS 
OF FLAG 
Rures GOVERNING TRANSFERS 
Sec. 302. Preliminary Observations. As was pointed out 
in the preceding chapter, a captured ship may be flying a non- 
enemy flag which it may have a right to fly according to the 
municipal law of the flag State and yet belligerents may refuse 
to recognize the right for the reason that the ship has been trans- 
ferred from an enemy or prospective enemy register to a non- 
enemy (national or neutral) register contrary to the rules of 
international law governing the transfers of flag. Whenever war 
breaks out or has become imminent, the owners of vessels which 
are or would be exposed to capture by reason of their enemy 
character are always under a temptation to transfer them by 
sale, or otherwise, to a non-enemy flag in order to avoid the 
risk of having them captured and confiscated by the enemy.* 
Sec. 303. Provisions of the Declaration of London. In 
the preceding chapter attention was called to the fact that while 
Article 57 of the Declaration of London makes the flag which a 
vessel is entitled to fly the test of its enemy or neutral char- 
acter the Article expressly makes this rule subject to the pro- 
1Tt may be observed that a change in the nationality of a ship may also 
result without there being a transfer of ownership. Thus after the outbreak 
of the World War various American-owned vessels registered under the 
German flag were transferred to American registry. Among them were the 
Brindilla and the Platuria, both of which were captured by British cruisers 
in October, 1915. The transfers here involved a change of flag but not of 
ownership. For this reason, apparently, the British government released 
them without submitting to the Prize Court the question of the validity 
of the transfers. The nationality of a ship may also be changed in con- 
sequence of a change in the nationality of the owner resulting from his 
naturalization or the cession of territory or the formation of a new State. 
See, for example, the case of the Mercur (27 Rev. Gén., 1920, Jurispr. 69), 
a vessel belonging to a German subject of Schleswig, which territory, in 
fonsequenie of the plebiscite under the treaty of Versailles, was returned to 
enmark. 
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