1. A privilege granted by a belligerent allowing an enemy, a neutral, or some other person to travel within or through a designated area for a specified purpose.
2. A document conveying this privilege. — Sometimes written safe-conduct.
— Also termed safeguard; passport.
“Passports and safeguards, or safe conducts, are letters of protection, with or without an escort, by which the person of an enemy is rendered inviolable. These may be given in order to carry on the peculiar commerce of war, or for reasons which have no relation to it, which terminate in the person himself.” Theodore D. Woolsey, Introduction to the Study of International Law § 155, at 265 (5th ed. 1878).
“Safe-conduct …. The grantee is inviolable so long as he complies with the conditions imposed on him or necessitated by the circumstances of the case. Unless stated, a safe-conduct does not cover goods or luggage. They may be given also for ships and for goods. To be effective under international law the grant must have been arranged between belligerents.” David M. Walker, The Oxford Companion to Law 1098 (1980).
