Safe Civilian Evacuation Requires a New Sign

On 2 February 2023, CIA Director William Burns said Chinese President Xi Jinping had ordered his military to be ready to conduct an invasion of Taiwan by 2027. Should that occur, the United States and other nations both in and outside the Indo-Pacific, including Japan, Australia, and Canada, will have to act to protect their citizens, and their navies and coast guards could be tasked to evacuate them.

According to Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior National Immigration Agency, as of August 2023, Taiwan had some 827,000 foreign residents. Among them, 90 percent were from Southeast Asia, led by Indonesia (about 260,000), as well as citizens of the United States (8,900), Japan (13,000), and Europe (9,300).

Surrounded by the sea, Taiwan has limited options to evacuate civilians: aircraft and ships. Considering the dangers the conflict would pose, evacuation of citizens by civilian vessels and aircraft may be difficult, as civilian firms may be inclined to prioritize the safety of their own employees. In addition, the evacuation operation may be time-sensitive. Therefore, it may be necessary to evacuate civilians and foreign nationals to a safe location by government vessels such as naval transports and coast guard ships.

Under current international maritime rules, if civilians are being transported by civilian vessels, such vessels are not subject to attack. However, if naval or coast guard vessels are used, they do not necessarily receive such protection.

Paragraph 47, “Classes of Vessels Exempt from Attack,” in the San Remo Manual—which is considered customary international naval law and referred to by many countries—states that “passenger vessels” are protected “when engaged only in carrying civilian passengers.”¹ The same paragraph says other vessels that do not constitute passenger ships, which would include warships and government vessels, but that are engaged in humanitarian missions are granted safe conduct by agreement between the belligerents. Such agreement would be extremely difficult to obtain in a timely manner were the belligerents engaged in actual conflict.

In addition, government vessels and warships have no way to show on their sides that they are engaged in humanitarian activities. Therefore, in the event of conflict in the Indo-Pacific, nations need to consider more realistic ways to protect citizens when using naval assets.

One way would be to apply the international sign of “civil defense” from the law of land warfare to naval vessels transporting civilians. According to article 66 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Convention, “the international distinctive sign of civil defence is an equilateral blue triangle on an orange ground when used for the protection of civil defense organizations, their personnel, buildings and matériel and for civilian shelters.”² As a matter of law, this sign is not directly applicable to war at sea; however, given that naval regulations did not envision the need to transport large numbers of civilians by naval and government vessels, the international community should recognize the civil defense sign for protection at sea and grant safe conduct to ships that display it.

Although the United States is not a party to Additional Protocol I, section 11.9.2 of Naval Warfare Publication 1-14M says the protective symbols established by the Protocol are useful in identifying facilities that may need to be factored into a commander’s proportionality analysis.

On 22 June 2023, Japan conducted citizen evacuation drills, displaying flags with the civil defense sign on its Coast Guard vessels. If armed conflict were to occur in Taiwan, where nearly 830,000 foreigners are living, the international community would need to find a way to use its navies, coast guards, and government ships to transport civilians safely out of danger.