(3) When anchored automatic contact mines are employed, every possible precaution must be taken for the security of peaceful navigation. The belligerents must provide, as far as possible, for these mines becoming harmless after a limited time has elapsed, and, where the mines cease to be under observation, to notify the danger zones as soon as military exigencies permit, by notice to mariners, which must also be communicated to the Governments through the diplomatic channel (article 3).
(4) At the close of the war, each Power must remove the mines laid by it. As regards anchored automatic contact mines laid by one of the belligerents off the coasts of the other, their position must be notified to the other party by the Power which laid them, and each Power must proceed with the least possible delay to remove the mines in its own waters (article 5).
(5) The Convention remains in force for seven years, but, unless denounced, it continues in force afterwards (article 11). According to article 12, however, the contracting Powers agree to reopen the question of the employment of automatic contact mines after six and a half years unless the Third Peace Conference has already taken up and settled the matter.
[Footnote 359: See Lawrence, _War_, pp. 93-111; Wetzstein, _Die Seeminenfrage im Völkerrecht_ (1909); Rocholl, _Die Frage der Minen im Seekrieg_ (1910); Barclay, pp. 59 and 158; Lémonon, pp. 472-502; Higgins, pp. 328-345; Boidin, pp. 216-235; Dupuis, _Guerre_, Nos. 331-358; Scott, _Conferences_, pp. 576-587; Martitz in the _Report of the 23rd Conference (1906) of the International Law Association_, pp. 47-74; Stockton in _A.J._ II. (1908), pp. 276-284.]
[Footnote 360: As regards neutrals, see below, § 363_a_.]
[Footnote 361: France and Germany have signed with reservations against article 2.]
There is no doubt that the stipulations of Convention VIII. are totally inadequate to secure the safety of neutral shipping, and it is for this reason that Great Britain added the following reservation in signing the Convention:--"In placing their signatures to this Convention the British plenipotentiaries declare that the mere fact that the said Convention does not prohibit a particular act or proceeding must not be held to debar His Britannic Majesty's Government from contesting its legitimacy." It is to be hoped that the Third Peace Conference will produce a more satisfactory settlement of the problem. The Institute of International Law studied the matter at its meetings at Paris in 1910 and at Madrid in 1911, and produced a _Règlementation_[362] _internationale de l'usage des mines sous-marines et torpilles_, comprising nine articles, of which the more important are the following:--