Naval Identity at Sea

I am polishing up my paper for the Buenos Aires and I would like to ask for some help with quoting the sources. Here are some of my questions or statements. The straightforward answer I know as I am sure many of us do, but I miss some "hard evidence."

- what regulation/international laws/customs determine the need for national identification of a ship and what is prescribed for a ship to be considered a war ship?

- a naval ship is identified as such (i.e. differentiated from a merchant ship) by the flags its fly (and possibly other non-vexillological signs). naval ensign, jack and masthead pennant identify the naval ship and its nationality. however, jack is nowadays used only on the anchor, masthead pennant is often gone altogether or very small?

I might have a few more of this kind, but this would already help if you could point me around.
Željko Heimer, 2 June 2005

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Convention on the High Seas, 1958 (article 8):

For the purposes of these articles, the term "warship" means a ship belonging to the naval forces of a State and bearing the external marks distinguishing warships of its nationality, under the command of an officer duly commissioned by the government and whose name appears in the Navy List, and manned by a crew who are under regular naval discipline.

Full text at: http://www.un.org/law/ilc/texts/hseas.htm

Almost same definition appear in article 29 of UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON THE LAW OF TH