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The ever-existing “crisis” of the law of naval warfare
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 October 2022
Abstract
Although the subject of law of naval warfare was first in modern treatymaking in international humanitarian law (IHL), further treatymaking efforts that comprehensively deal with all matters of the law of naval warfare never really took off. This particular part of IHL has always been primarily governed by custom. Scholarly calls for revision have not pressed States into further treatymaking efforts, which gives the law of naval warfare a semblance of being continuously in a state of crisis. Conveniently for States, the San Remo Manual solved a significant portion of this crisis, but perhaps too successfully, as it may have taken away incentives for States to further develop the law. While the law of the sea has been steadily growing as a – codified – legal regime and protective rules of IHL garnered much attention, the law of naval warfare seems somewhat forgotten and crumbling in its details.
Keywords
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- Research Article
- Information
- International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 104 , Issue 920-921: How International Humanitarian Law Develops , August 2022 , pp. 1971 - 1988
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the ICRC.
References
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64 Yoram Dinstein, The Conduct of Hostilities Under the Law of International Armed Conflict, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005, p. 12; UK Ministry of Defence, “Maritime Warfare”, in The Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005, p. 348; James Kraska and Raul Pedrozo, International Maritime Security Law, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Leiden/Boston, MA, 2013, p. 859.
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70 Danish Ministry of Defence, Defence Command Denmark, Military Manual on International Law Relevant to Danish Armed Forces in International Operations, 2016, p. 579, available at: www.forsvaret.dk/globalassets/fko---forsvaret/dokumenter/publikationer/-military-manual-updated-2020-2.pdf.
71 Federal Ministry of Defence, Law of Armed Conflict – Manual, Joint Service Regulation (ZDv) 15/2, Berlin, 1 May 2003, para. 131, available at: www.bmvg.de/resource/blob/93610/ae27428ce99dfa6bbd8897c269e7d214/b-02-02-10-download-manual-law-of-armed-conflict-data.pdf.
72 Except for in one footnote, where it says that the participants of the San Remo Manual opined that hospital ships should be allowed to use cryptographic equipment. US Department of Defense, Department of Defense Law of War Manual, Washington, DC, December 2016, p. 482, footnote 324, available at: https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/DoD%20Law%20of%20War%20Manual%20-%20June%202015%20Updated%20Dec%202016.pdf.
73 U.S. Navy NWP, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Coast Guard, The Commander's Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations (NWP 1-14M), March 2022, available at: https://usnwc.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=66321384.
74 Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg, “The Current State of the Law of Naval Warfare: A Fresh Look at the San Remo Manual”, International Law Studies, Vol. 82, 2006. See also on current initiatives regarding updating the San Remo Manual, Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg, “Updating the Law of Naval Warfare”, Lieber Institute, West Point, 6 January 2022, available at: https://lieber.westpoint.edu/year-ahead-2022/.
75 See UNCLOS, Art. 29, available at: www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/unclos_e.pdf.
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77 ICRC, above note 30, paras 65–6.
78 See, for instance, paragraph 2323 and further regarding Article 32 of GC II, referring to well-established rights and obligations of neutrals and belligerents in Hague Convention XIII, or certain paragraphs in Article 33 of GC II.
79 The references used are a collection of (mostly English, French and Spanish) manuals; see U.S Naval War College, Stockton e-Portal: Military Legal Manuals, available at: https://usnwc.libguides.com/c.php?g=86619&p=557511. That does, however, not mean that other States, such as Russia, China, Israel and Japan, may not have elaborate chapters on the law of naval warfare, which are inaccessible to me. The Dutch do not have a manual that includes the law of naval warfare. The Netherlands Admiralty Manual on the law of naval warfare, written by M. W. Mouton in the 1950s, is the only official reference known to me. It is unknown, however, whether it is still in force. M. W. Mouton, Instructie betreffende de toepassing van het internationale en nationale zeeoorlogsrecht tijdens een oorlog, waarin het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden is betrokken, Ministry of Defence, 1956.
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82 One recent case might be the case that came before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea on the Kerch Strait incident between Russia and Ukraine.
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