“The Laws of Maritime Warfare are today mainly in the form of provisions of International Treaties- explain& illustrate
1 Introduction
The law of maritime warfare as it existed in 1899 and as it is understood in 1999 exhibits a few similarities but many differences. The fundamental similarity is that the law of naval warfare can be seen, then as now, as consisting primarily of customary international law. The many differences in this law have been caused by the major changes in war at sea and the law of the sea. In 1899 war at sea meant combat primarily by gunfire between surface warships, control of maritime commerce, and shore bombardment. Today, war at sea also involves nuclear-powered aircraft carriers; supersonic aircraft, helicopters and tilt-rotor aircraft; submarines; high-speed patrol craft; ballistic, cruise, and other guided missiles; long-range secure communications for command, control computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; radar; underwater sound technology; electronic and information warfare; satellites in space; unmanned aerial and undersea vehicles; and stealth and computer technology ; as well as expeditionary and amphibious capabilities. Nevertheless, the fundamental role of navies continues to be to establish control at sea or to deny it to the enemy, linking that control to board political and economic issues ashore. In view of these constants and changes, this will review the state of the law of maritime warfare are today mainly in the form of provisions of International treaties.[1]
2. Definitions:
2.1 Maritime Warfare:
Maritime warfare or naval warfare refers to warfare that is conducted in and on seas, oceans, or any other major water bodies such as lakes or rivers. Naval warfare includes military operations conducted on the sea and is waged against other seagoing vessels or targets on land or in the air. Earlier, fishing boats and merchant ships were used for the purpose of naval warfare. Now, submarines play a major role in naval warfare. Naval warfare also involves nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, supersonic aircraft, cruise, and many other guided missiles. Naval warfare has been adequately recognized under international law. Many treaties and conventions are ratified to safeguard the interest of people engaged during naval warfare. One of the important conventions relating naval warfare is the Geneva Convention that was ratified in 1949 by 61 countries.
2.2 International Treaties:
A treaty is an express agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations. A treaty may also be known as an (international) agreement, protocol, covenant, convention or exchange of letters, among other terms. Regardless of terminology, all of these forms of agreements are, under international law, equally considered treaties and the rules are the same. Treaties can be loosely compared to contracts: both are means of willing parties assuming obligations among themselves, and a party to either that fails to live up to their obligations can be held liable under international law.
In the modern usage a treaty is an official, express written agreement that states use to legally bind themselves a treaty is that official document which expresses that agreement in words; and it is also the objective outcome of a ceremonial occasion which acknowledges the parties and their defined relationships.
2.3 Public International Law:
Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond domestic legal interpretation and enforcement. Public international law has increased in use and importance vastly over the twentieth century, due to the increase in global trade, environmental deterioration on a worldwide scale, awareness of human rights violations, and rapid and vast increases in international transportation and a boom in global communications.
The field of study combines two main branches: the law of nations and international agreements and conventions, which have different foundations and should not be confused.
3. History of Maritime Warfare:
Mankind has fought battles on the sea for more than 3,000 years. Land navigation, until the advent of extensive railroads was extremely dependent upon river systems and canals.
The latter were crucial in the development of the modern world in the United Kingdom, the Low Countries and northern Germany, for they enabled the bulk movement of goods and raw materials without which the Industrial Revolution would not have occurred. Prior to 1750, things moved by barge or sea, or not much at all. Thus armies, with their exorbitant needs for food, ammunition and fodder, were tied to the river valleys throughout the ages.
Many sea battles through history also provide a reliable source of shipwrecks for underwater archaeology. A major example, albeit not very commonly known, is the exploration of the wrecks of various warships in the Pacific Ocean.
4. The General Principles of the Laws of War
Although the resort to war is generally prohibited by the Charter of the United Nations, it is exceptionally permitted as an enforcement measure taken by or on behalf of the United Nations and/or as a measure of individual or collective self-defense. However, the distinction must be made between the resort to war and the conduct of war. Whether the resort to war is lawful or unlawful, the conduct of war is regulated by the system of rules known as the laws (or rules) of war. These laws regulate the conduct of war on land, at sea, and in the air.
5. The Sources of the Laws Regulating Warfare
5.1 Customary Law:
Customary laws of war develop out of the usage or practice of States when such usage or practice attains a degree of regularity and is accompanied by the general conviction that behavior in conformity with this usage or practice is both obligatory and right. In a period marked by frequent resort to armed conflict, customary law may develop within a short time.
5.2 Treaties
Treaties, or conventions as they are sometimes called, are international agreements between two or more states. Certain conventions represent a codification of the rules of war already established by custom. There are also conventions by which new laws of war are created. Both types of conventions have provided the more important developments in the rules of war. The most recently concluded international conventions relating to the regulation of the conduct of warfare are the 1949 Geneva Conventions for the Protection of War Victims.
6 The Basic Principles of the Laws of War
Among the customary rules of warfare, there are three rules frequently referred to as the “basic principles of the laws of war”: military necessity, humanity, and chivalry. These rules, or basic principles, are defined as follows:
6.1 Military necessity:
The principle of military necessity permits a belligerent to apply only that degree and kind of regulated force, not otherwise prohibited by the laws of war, required for the partial or complete submission of the enemy with the least possible expenditure of time, life, and physical resources.
6.2 Humanity prohibits
The principle of humanity prohibits the employment of any kind or degree of force not necessary for the purpose of the war, i.e., for the partial or complete submission of the enemy with the least possible expenditure of time, life, and physical resources.
6.3 Chivalry
The principle of chivalry forbids the resort to dishonorable (treacherous) means, expedients, or conduct.
7 Areas of Maritime Warfare Operations:
7.1 The Legal Divisions of the Sea
In international law, navigable waters are classified under three headings: from the land outward to the open sea there are first internal waters, then territorial sea (waters), and, finally, the high seas. This section describes the dividing lines distinguishing the different legal classifications of navigable waters and the character of the legal control (or jurisdiction) exercised in each classification by States in time of peace. These are significant also as between belligerents and neutrals.
7.2 Internal Waters
A. Geographic Extent
Internal waters comprise all those waters which lie within the base line of the territorial sea. They consist of landlocked waters, rivers (including their mouths), canals, waters in ports and harbors, and certain of a State’s gulfs and bays.
B. Legal Control
A State has the same exclusive legal control over its internal waters as it has over its other territory.
7.3 Territorial Sea (Waters)
A. Geographic Extent
The territorial sea consists of a belt of the sea extending outward from the base line for three nautical miles. Normally, the base line for measuring the breadth of the territorial sea is the low-water line along the coast as marked on large-scale charts officially recognized by the coastal State. However, where a coast is deeply indented and cut into, or where there is a fringe of islands along the coast in its immediate vicinity, the method of straight base lines joining appropriate points may be employed in drawing the base line.
B. Legal Control
A State’s legal control over the territorial sea is the same generally as its legal control over its internal waters, but there is one important difference. According to a rule of established international law, in time of peace, ships of all States, whether coastal or not, shall enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea for the purpose of traversing that sea without entering internal waters, or of proceeding to internal waters, or of making for the high seas from internal waters.
7.4 High (Open) Seas
7.4. 1 Geographic Extent
The high seas consist of all waters which lie to seaward of the outer limit of the territorial sea, i.e., all of the seas that are not included in the territorial sea or in the internal waters of a State.
7.4.2 Legal Control
The important legal characteristic of the high seas is that they are not, in geographic whole or part, under the legal control of any State. The legal order of the high seas is international law rather than national law. The high seas being open to all nations, no State may validly purport to subject any part of them to its sovereignty.
8 The Areas of Naval Warfare
8.1 The general area of naval warfare
The general area within which the naval forces of belligerents are permitted to conduct operations includes: the high seas, the territorial sea and internal waters of belligerents, the territory of belligerents accessible to naval forces, and the air space over such waters and territory.
8.2 The immediate area of naval operations.
Within the immediate area or vicinity of naval operations, a belligerent may establish special restrictions upon the activities of neutral vessels and aircraft and may prohibit altogether such vessels and aircraft from entering the area. Neutral vessels and aircraft which fail to comply with a belligerent’s orders expose themselves to the risk of being fired upon. Such vessels and aircraft are also liable to capture
9 Legal Restrictions upon Weapons and Methods Employed In Naval Warfare[2]
9.1 Weapons:
9.1.1 Mines and Torpedoes
The only restrictions lay down by a convention governing the belligerent employment of mines and torpedoes are laid down in Hague Convention No. VIII (1907). Articles 1 through 3 of this Convention read as follows:
| Article 1. It is forbidden: 1. To lay unanchored automatic contact mines, except when they are so constructed as to become harmless one hour at most after the person who laid them ceases to control them; 2. To lay anchored automatic contact mines which do not become harmless as soon as they have broken loose from their moorings; 3. To use torpedoes which do not become harmless when they have missed their mark. Article 2. It is forbidden to lay automatic contact mines off the coast and ports of the enemy, with the sole object of intercepting commercial shipping. Article 3. When anchored automatic contact mines are employed, every possible precaution must be taken for the security of peaceful shipping. |
The belligerents undertake to do their utmost to render these mines harmless within a limited time, and, should they cease to be under surveillance, to notify the danger zones as soon as military exigencies permit, by a notice addressed to ship-owners, which must also be communicated to the Governments through the diplomatic channels.
9.1.2 Chemicals, Gases, and Bacteria
A. Chemicals
Weapons of chemical types which are at times asphyxiating in nature, such as white phosphorus, smoke, and flame throwers, may be employed. It is equally permissible to use weapons employing fire, such as tracer ammunition, flame throwers, and other incendiary instruments and projectiles.
B. Gases and bacteria
The United States is not a party to any treaty now in force that prohibits or restricts the use in warfare of poisonous or asphyxiating gases or of bacteriological weapons. Although the use of such weapons frequently has been condemned by States, including the United States, it remains doubtful that, in the absence of a specific restriction established by treaty, a State legally is prohibited at present from resorting to their use. However, it is clear that the use of poisonous gas or bacteriological weapons may be considered justified against an enemy who first resorts to the use of these weapons.
9.1.3 Nuclear Weapons
There is at present no rule of international law expressly prohibiting States from the use of nuclear weapons in warfare. In the absence of express prohibition, the use of such weapons against enemy combatants and other military objectives is permitted.
9.1.4 Bombardment
The term bombardment as used herein includes both naval and aerial bombardment. This section is not concerned with the legal limitations on land bombardment by land forces.
10. Bibliography:
1)http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2555231?uid=3737584&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21101938723497
2) http://definitions.uslegal.com/n/naval-warfare/
3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_treaties
4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_international_law
5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_warfare
6) http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/law_naval_warfare.htm
[1]http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2555231?uid=3737584&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21101938723497
[2] http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/law_naval_warfare.htm