Sumbarine Warfare ProtocolCategory: Global Disarmament | Strength: Mild | Submitted by: SternbergThe General Assembly,RECOGNISES the authority of national military forces to govern and discipline their own personnel,ACKNOWLEDGES the continual deployment of combat submarines by multiple nations to fulfill military objectives in war,ADDITIONALLY ACKNOWLEDGING that the conduct of submarine warfare is, by its nature, legally ambiguous and that decisions rely on the judgement of senior officers or a nation's political leaders,CONCERNED, however, that the absence of international law on submarine warfare can be exploited by nations willing to ignore humanitarian law and military regulations,CONVINCED that a protocol on conducting submarine warfare should be legally enshrined in order to address legal, humanitarian and military concerns,Hereby:1. DEFINES:“Military submarine” as any submersible craft:I. Expressly owned and operated by or on behalf of a nation’s armed forces (government-ordained or privately controlled),II. Armed, equipped and capable of disabling and sinking other vessels,III. Utilised in the pursuit of combative military objectives at sea; andIV. Excepting vessels that are purposed for non-combatant tasks.“Submarine Warfare” as any combative naval operation prosecuted by one or more military submarines; and“Unrestricted Submarine Warfare” as standing orders or practice to deliberately target ships, regardless of:I. Declared nationality,II. The target's port of origin, destination or present location,III. The ship's purpose and combatant status of its crew; andIV. As part of preemptive military action during peace or active conflict war.2. DECLARES the deliberate targeting of non-combatant vessels without justifiable cause to be a war crime,3. FORBIDS and considers the following to be a criminal action to attack:Any civilian or commercial vessel which - based on available intelligence such as observed behaviour, course and communications - can be clearly identified, prior to and during operations, as:I. Not purposed or assigned to transporting military assets or cargo,II. Not armed or travelling under military escort,III. Clearly marked as internationally-protected or non-combatant, orIV. Originating from a nation not involved with the conflict and does not, in any form, provide assistance to a combatant's war effort.Any warship that has clearly and credibly signalled its surrender.4. MANDATES that World Assembly member nations are to investigate and prosecute any personnel found to have been in violation of this protocol.5. CLARIFIES that situations involving unusual circumstances such as:Accidental sinking, where any sunken ships that conform under Article 3 were not ordered to be sunk,Friendly fire,Failure to yield, where vessels that deliberately intrude into neutral, sovereign or internationally-declared waters:I. Perpetually fail to heed warnings to halt or alter course, other then due to communication or mechanical failure, or duress from a third party, orII. Actively resist reasonable, legally permissible orders to be boarded and inspected;orAny acts of perfidy intended to deceive or assist in destroying enemy vessels.Must be individually assessed to determine the incident's circumstances, establish any culpability of the submarine's crew and determine any mitigating factors that were out of their control.
For example, much of this proposal was inspired by Article 22 within the London Naval Treaty of 1930, as well as the subsequent Second London Naval Treaty of 1936. They did not, initially, address the issue of unrestricted submarine warfare directly, however they did provide a fairly malleable framework for how submarine warfare should, at the time, be ideally conducted.
