Measures Against Looting
During a disaster, police and military authorities are sometimes unable to prevent looting when they are overwhelmed by humanitarian or combat concerns, or cannot be summoned due to damaged communications infrastructure. Especially during natural disasters, some people find themselves forced to take what is not theirs in order to survive. How to respond to this is often a dilemma for the authorities. In other cases, looting may be tolerated or even encouraged by authorities for political or other reasons.
The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 explicitly prohibits the looting of civilian property during wartime. The Hague Convention of 1899 (modified in 1954) obliges military forces not only to avoid destruction of enemy property, but to provide protection to it. Theoretically, to prevent such looting, unclaimed property is moved to the custody of the Custodian of Enemy Property, to be handled until the return to its owner.
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