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Seaports in International Law pp 43–47Cite as

When You are Forced to Remember the Port: The Laws of Wars from the Hague Conventions to the Cuban Crisis

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Abstract

The international law of naval warfare is generally attentive enough to seaports, which it treats adopting a quite pragmatic approach, imposed by the harsh necessities of warfare.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    International Committee of the Red Cross (2017b, c, d, e, f).

  2. 2.

    International Committee of the Red Cross (2017a).

  3. 3.

    Uruguay declared war against Germany and Japan only in 1945: República Oriental del Uruguay (1945).

  4. 4.

    International Committee of the Red Cross (2017f), Article 14.

  5. 5.

    McDougal and Feliciano (1994), p. 461. The Uruguayan Government almost immediately published a Blue Book on the case: Uruguayan Government (1940).

  6. 6.

    During the American Civil War, the U.S. Government argued that a blockade can, under given conditions, be applied also to neutral ports, but this doctrine has remained isolated: Department of the Navy (2007), Section 7.7.4; Ministry of Defence (2014), paragraph 13.65ff; International Law Association (1998), paragraph 5.2.10; International Committee of the Red Cross (2017h), Article 99. More recently, Israel declared a blockade in the framework of its alleged “war” against Hamas: The public Commission to examine the maritime incident of 31 May 2010 (2011); United Nations General Assembly (2010).

  7. 7.

    Qualifying the blockade as an actual use of armed force can obviously give way to the exercise of the right of self-defense by the blockaded State. Such a legal consequence can appear extreme, at least insofar no distinction is drawn between the total blockade of an insular State which has no other means of supplying its population and the blockade of some ports of a State which can be supplied by land. Indeed there are at least some doubts on the possibility to consider a blockade as an armed attack pursuant to the UN Charter, but this has not been ruled out altogether: Ruys (2010), p. 275ff.

  8. 8.

    In his televised speech of 22 October 1962, U.S. President John F. Kennedy clearly outlined the difference between quarantine and blockade: text of the speech retrieved from Van Doren and McHenry (1971), p. 582. See also Allison (1999), p. 111ff.

  9. 9.

    As far as the United States knew, Cuba could have been delivered the launch codes of the nuclear missiles by the Soviet authorities. This was not the case, as it was proven in 2002 by Russian Federation (2002). The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff assessed that the risk of a nuclear attack from Cuba was so high that they recommended an immediate invasion of the island: Kennedy (1971), p. 14. Also the French President Charles de Gaulle advised the United States that the quarantine was not an adequate counter-move: Department of State (1962).

  10. 10.

    First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics.

  11. 11.

    John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum (2017).

  12. 12.

    Abel (1966), p. 44; Oliver and Tondel (1964), p. 26.

  13. 13.

    The blockade is sometimes described as targeting the coast, rather than the ports, of a State. However, no meaningful supplying is possible but via the seaports, which must therefore be considered the real target of any blockade.

  14. 14.

    The reciprocal blockade between Great Britain and Germany during World War I was officially qualified by both Powers as maritime patrolling against war contraband: Department of State (2017); Ambassador Gerard to the Secretary of State (Telegram), 4 May 1916, retrieved from Lutz (1932). However, they were de facto blockades, so much that specific “war zones” for the interception of enemy and neutral ships were designated in the Northern and Baltic Sea and around the British Isles, respectively. As for the kind of cargo transported by the ships, the British Government adopted lists of forbidden goods which were so ample as to include virtually any good, including food, while the German submarines were obviously unable to inspect the ships. The same can be said of the unrestricted submarine warfare waged by Germany against Britain during World War II. Again, the judgment passed by the International Military Tribunal against Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy from 1943 to 1945, makes references to the Second London Protocol (International Committee of the Red Cross 2017g) regulating contraband (Rule 2 of the Protocol): International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg) (1946). However, the very same judgment records that the submarine warfare campaign was waged, or at least focused, within “operational zones.” Once again, the use of submarines meant that the ships were not inspected, therefore no distinction was made between contraband and noncontraband cargoes.

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    Marco Casagrande

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Casagrande, M. (2017). When You are Forced to Remember the Port: The Laws of Wars from the Hague Conventions to the Cuban Crisis. In: Seaports in International Law. SpringerBriefs in Law. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60396-4_9

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