Proposal First Submitted: 26/07/2014
Second Submission: 02/02/2015
Last Edit Date: 02/02/2015
Category: Global Disarmament
Strength: Mild
Authored By: The Royal Imperium of Sternberg
The General Assembly,
RECOGNISING the authority of national military forces to govern and discipline their own personnel,
ACKNOWLEDGING the continual deployment of combat submarines by multiple nations to fulfill military maritime objectives,
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 related military regulations while at sea,
CONVINCED that a binding resolution on conducting submarine warfare should be legally enshrined in order to address legal, humanitarian and military concerns,
Hereby:
1. DEFINES:
- “Military submarine” as any armed, military-owned and operated submersible that is designed for underwater combat operations; and
- “Unrestricted Submarine Warfare” as standing orders or practice to deliberately target ships, regardless of:
- Declared nationality,
- The target's port of origin, destination or present location,
- The ship's purpose and combatant status of its crew, and
- As part of preemptive military operations;
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:
- Not purposed or assigned to transporting military assets or cargo,
- Not armed or travelling under military escort,
- Clearly marked as internationally-protected or non-combatant, or
- Originating from a nation not involved with the conflict and that 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 under their jurisdiction found to have been in violation of this resolution.
5. CLARIFIES that situations involving unusual circumstances such as:Must be individually assessed post-incident 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.
- Accidental sinking, if any sunken ships that conform under Article 3 were not intended to be sunk,
- Failure to yield, where vessels that deliberately intrude into neutral, sovereign or internationally-declared waters:
or
- Perpetually fail to heed warnings to halt or alter course, other than due to communication or mechanical failure, or duress from a third party, or
- Actively resist reasonable, legally permissible orders to be boarded and inspected;
- Any acts of perfidy,
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