The Legal Situation of Civilian Vessels in Armed Conflicts at Sea

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to present and analyse the legal situation of civilian vessels in times of armed conflicts at sea, including their rights and duties vis-à-vis belligerents. For this purpose, this thesis consists of two main parts. The first part will present the existing rules of international law governing civilian maritime navigation in armed conflicts. The second part will discuss the current challenges to the application of those rules under contemporary circumstances of maritime navigation. This thesis argues that the existing rules of the law of naval warfare are unable to provide substantial protection to civilian vessels and do not offer an efficient balance between belligerent and civilian interests at sea. This phenomenon mainly results from the fact that the law of naval warfare mainly relies on historical rules, such as the 1856 Paris Declaration and the Hague Conventions adopted in 1907, and traditional concepts, such as prize law and the law of blockade regulated by customary rules as proposed by the 1994 San Remo Manual. Moreover, the developments in international humanitarian law and other branches of international law could not sufficiently transform the traditional understanding, which is also dominant in the literature. Nevertheless, considering the significant place of maritime navigation in global trade and its vulnerability during armed conflicts, this thesis offers a progressive approach as regards the protection of civilian vessels from hostilities at sea, through the strengthened application of the principles of distinction and proportionality to the rules on naval targeting and to acts of economic warfare at sea against civilian vessels, as well as the simultaneous application of the law of naval warfare, and the Charter of the United Nations and the law of the sea. By doing so, this thesis will expose the need for a comprehensive update in the law of naval warfare and conclude that the progressive codification will solve the ongoing crisis.