Visit and Search is the right of a belligerent warship, under certain conditions, to board a neutral merchant ship in order to verify its true character. The term probably refers to a misunderstanding of the French word visite, which in this context simply means search.[1]
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VBSS -- Visit, Board, Search & Seizure
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U.S. Navy conducts VBSS (Visit Board Seize and Search) anti-piracy training
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The Academic Job Search and the Campus Visit
Transcription
Complacency is what gets people hurt. This particular mission you have to go execute it. Not everybody succeeds. I know that if I turn this corner my teammate will be right there. Visit, Board, Search and Seizure is a mission area comprised of a team on board the ship that allows Sailors to do other work on board to come together... they go over on a small boat to a cargo ship and they can inspect it under a United Nations Security Council Resolutions to look for contraband or... ... weapons that potentially could get in the enemy's hands. And if you do find weapons, if you do find drugs that you're not suspected of, first and foremost you integrate that from the rest of the ship and make sure they cannot be used against you. In addition we use the same teams to go fight piracy around the world, in areas when we're called, if there was a ship under attack, we would go into the area and use this team to board them and detain them. The course is nineteen training days long. Male or Female Sailors can apply and volunteer for the program. We try to throw as much information at them as we can, 'cause that's what a real boarding mission's going to give them. It's a lot of work. I mean they're taking in a lot of information. It's like trying to take a drink of water through a fire hose. They have to go through individual training... My instructors take them in and teach them all the fundamentals and tactics that they need. As a team they go through training to make sure that they work well together. And I always tell myself my teammates are there and they have my back. It's a lot of trust of the team. We're all here for one reason and that's to get the training to go out there and do this stuff for real. Make the wrong decision in a training environment, we can correct on it, we can re-train and re-set... "And when we de-conflict, de-conflict with your non firing hand." ... gives them that much more experience so that when they get in country, they get in theater, that they're gonna have the confidence to know what they have to do. It's a really exciting mission to be a part of. You can imagine being out at sea, doing your regular job, and then when we get called into an anti-piracy mission, getting in the small boat, briefing what's gonna happen, and then going out and taking care of it. It draws you out of your normal, everyday, seven day work week into, ok, what are we doing this week? Ok, we're doing a boarding. We're doing a help and comfort. Our mission is constantly changing. It's important that our students are able to go out there and provide value. VBSS isn't necessarily anti-piracy and anti-piracy only. We have a team that can go in and be a first responder. [ no voice over ] "Sir how you doin' today? USA boarding team, we're conducting a search on your vessel." Global Force For Good ties into our role as a deterrent force. We're able to stay on station. We're able to go out on the seas, and our friends and allies are re-assured by our presence. It really speaks to the diversity that is paramount to all the operations we conduct all over the world and what really does separate the American Navy from all navies across the globe.
Declaration of London
The regulation of naval search during time of war was codified as part of the Declaration of London (1903). However, no state ratified the declaration so it had no force in international law.[2]
The intent of the declaration was as follows. The right of search belongs to belligerents alone. Its object is to verify the nationality of the vessel and if neutral to ascertain whether it carries contraband. The consequence of resistance to search is capture and trial in a Prize court. Article 63 of the Declaration states that "Forcible resistance to the legitimate exercise of the right of stoppage, search and capture involves in all cases the condemnation of the vessel. The cargo is liable to the same treatment as the cargo of an enemy vessel. Goods belonging to the master or owner of the vessel are treated as enemy goods." At the Hague Convention of 1907, the question of the liability to search of mail-ships gave rise to much discussion based on incidents arising out of the Boer and Russo-Japanese Wars. It was ultimately decided under a separate article of the Hague conference that postal correspondence of neutrals and even of belligerents, and whether official or private, found on board a neutral or even an enemy ship should be "inviolable", and that though the ship should be detained, this correspondence had to be forwarded to its destination by the captor "with the least possible delay." The only exception to this exemption is correspondence destined for or proceeding from a blockaded port. As regards the mail-ships themselves, apart from this inviolability of the correspondence, no exemption or privilege is extended beyond the injunction that they should not be searched, except when absolutely necessary, and then only "with as much consideration and expedition as possible," which might just as well be said of all ships stopped or searched in international waters.[3]
According to the U.S. Navy,
- "Under the law of armed conflict, belligerent warships or aircraft may visit and search a merchant vessel for the purpose of determining its true character, i.e., enemy or neutral, nature of cargo, manner of employment, and other facts bearing on its relation to the conflict. Such visits occur outside neutral territorial seas. This right does not extend to visiting or searching warships or vessels engaged in government non-commercial service. In addition, neutral merchant vessels in convoy of neutral warships are exempt from visit and search, although the convoy commander may be required to certify the neutral character of merchant vessels' cargo."
See also
References
- ^ Barclay 1911.
- ^ Declaration concerning the Laws of Naval War, icrc.org.
- ^ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Barclay, Thomas (1911). "Search". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 560.
This page was last edited on 21 December 2018, at 19:56