The Newport Manual on the Law of Naval Warfare
Ist International Maritime Law and Technologies Symposium (IMLTECH'25)), Düzce, Türkiye, 20 - 22 Kasım 2025, cilt.1, ss.1-22, (Tam Metin Bildiri)
- Yayın Türü: Bildiri / Tam Metin Bildiri
- Cilt numarası: 1
- Basıldığı Şehir: Düzce
- Basıldığı Ülke: Türkiye
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.1-22
- İstanbul Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
The publication of the Newport Manual on the Law of Naval Warfare in 2023, followed by a revised second edition in 2025, cannot be explained solely by the technological obsolescence of the 1994 San Remo Manual. The Newport project also emerged from disagreement over whether certain San Remo formulations accurately reflected contemporary lex lata or instead incorporated humanitarian and progressive propositions insufficiently supported by State practice and opinio juris. Developed under the institutional auspices of the Stockton Center for International Law at the United States Naval War College, Newport consequently constitutes an alternative, operationally oriented restatement rather than an authorised revision or replacement of San Remo.
This research examines the Manual’s institutional derivation, distinctive methodology and strategic utility. It argues that Newport offers the United States and its maritime partners a significant interoperability benefit: it places legal positions important to coalition naval operations within a multinational expert framework, identifies divergences arising from different treaty obligations and national interpretations, and preserves operational flexibility in areas where San Remo adopts more restrictive formulations. The chapter compares the two manuals concerning blockade and humanitarian relief, visit and search, protected vessels, targeting, neutral exclusive economic zones and the relationship between the law of naval warfare and the peacetime law of the sea. It further analyses Newport’s treatment of matters absent or underdeveloped in San Remo, particularly unmanned and autonomous maritime systems, remote command, the platform–weapon distinction, submarine infrastructure and the limited application of naval-warfare rules in non-international armed conflicts. Particular attention is given to the changes introduced in the 2025 edition in light of operations in the Black Sea and Red Sea.
The article concludes that Newport is technologically current and operationally valuable but neither a treaty nor an official multinational code. Although multinational in authorship, it remains a normatively concentrated restatement shaped predominantly by the practice and operational requirements of influential maritime powers. Its individual propositions must therefore be verified against applicable treaties, customary international law, national law, operational mandates and rules of engagement. For Türkiye, Newport provides a comparative framework for legal assessment and operational planning, not an autonomously applicable body of rules.