Banning the sale of modern firearms in Africa: On the origins of the Brussels Conference Act of 1890

The Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference in 1889–1890 agreed upon a sales ban of modern firearms for large parts of the African continent, a covenant that served joint imperial interests amid the ‘Scramble for Africa’. This article reconstructs the historical context in which the Brussels provisions came into being and explores the inter-imperial co-operation that paved the way for the agreement. To understand its origins, special attention must be paid to local events in East Africa and to a naval blockade that was executed here in 1888–1889. It was against this background that the German government, navigating between commercial and security interests, drafted the international control scheme that was later in large part adopted by the Brussels Conference. The article also demonstrates how in this context the issue of arms control was bound up with anti-slavery politics, thereby linking it to the imperial ‘civilising mission’.

Chinese Ports Blockade by the Nationalists Navy, Background to the 1954 Capture of the Tanker Tuapse

In 1949, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army drove Chiang Kai-shek’s followers from the mainland to the island of Taiwan, but the Chinese Nationalists did not resign themselves to defeat. Enlisting the support of its American allies, the Kuomintang tried to impose a naval blockade on the People’s Republic of China and detained foreign cargo ships on their way to the communists. The Nationalists announced the closure of the ports taken over by the CCP-led military forces, which gradually turned into an economic and military blockade of the entire China coastline. As a result, foreign and Chinese merchant ships that were carrying cargo to the PRC were shelled, destroyed, or detained by Nationalist naval ships. The notorious one was the seizure of the Soviet oil tanker Tuapse in 1954. The author, referring to the prehistory of the Tuapse detention, investigates the Nationalists’ justification of the closure policy, its goals and objectives. The paper reveals also the rules adopted by the government of the ROC Navy's interaction with foreign vessels, and touches upon the extent of the US involvement in maritime operations, using unexplored documents, and comments of senior ROC government officials.

Iranian influence will help prolong Yemen’s conflict

Significance The strikes came after Huthi fighters claimed to have downed a Saudi Tornado jet with an advanced missile. Riyadh admitted “collateral damage” from its mission to rescue the pilots and said it had evacuated injured civilians. After the US killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in early January, Huthi leaders expressed renewed solidarity with military backer Tehran. A period of relative calm was in mid-January overtaken by a new bout of intense fighting, with Huthi advances against coalition forces in western Jawf and Marib. Impacts The IRGC might more openly challenge the naval blockade that seeks to prevent the smuggling of supplies to the Huthis. The side-lining of peace talks could bring forward a Huthi faction critical of the extent of Iranian influence on the movement. Shifting dynamics may contribute to new blockages of essential food and fuel in Huthi areas, further increasing civilian suffering.

Toward “World Support” and “The Ultimate Judgment of History”: The U.S. Legal Case for the Blockade of Cuba during the Missile Crisis, October–November 1962

The immense secondary literature on the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 tends to overlook the U.S. government's promotion of a case in international law to legitimize and generate support for the naval blockade of Cuba. This article explores the development and presentation of the legal case and then gauges its success by looking at the response of various non-Communist governments. Those governments endorsed U.S. policy despite, not because of, the U.S. legal case, which they found highly questionable. The analysis here draws extensively on archival sources as well as on the latest published research and presents a fresh contribution to the historiography about the most dangerous confrontation of the Cold War.

Communication Pathologies and Human Rights: Understanding Crimes of Peace

With breaking news and tweets of sinkings, rescues, rejections, deaths at sea, naval blocks very often one has theperception that everything has already been said and written in the vortex of institutional and non-governmentalcommunication on the theme of migrants.In Italy, in particular, the situations listed above, which still fill the media agenda and remain trend topics for weeks onsocial networks like Twitter and Instragram, are not only ideological and / or symbolic, but also material and too oftencategorized with the expression "war crimes", when more correctly that sinking or that naval blockade should berecognized as a "crime of peace": it’s necessary overcome this pathology in communication /information and return toreconsidering human rights, talking about "migrant democracy".

Complaint Regarding the Israeli Actions Against the Maritime Flotilla for the Gaza Strip

War and armed conflict — International armed conflict — Non-international armed conflict — Status of armed conflict — Law of armed conflict — Armed conflict at sea — Whether armed conflict between non-State organization and Israel — Terrorism — Use of terrorist methods — Relevance — Prerequisites for determining existence of armed conflict — Whether necessary to determine whether armed conflict international or non-international in character — Distinction between war crime and ordinary crime — War crimes — Nexus requirement — Attack in law governing conduct of hostilities — Military objective — Law governing armed conflict at sea — Right to a naval blockade — Status of merchant vessel breaching naval blockade — Status of goods on merchant vessel breaching naval blockade — Contraband — Enforcement of naval blockade on high seas — Naval blockade in law of international armed conflict — Non-international armed conflict — Whether power to impose a naval blockade applicable — Distinction between members of non-State organized armed groups and civilians — Journalists and war correspondents — Civilian taking a direct part in hostilities — Proportionality — International criminal law — Humanitarian assistance and peacekeeping missions — Wilfully causing great suffering and serious injury to body or health — Deportation and forcible transfer — Humiliating and degrading treatment — Unjustifiably delaying return home of a person detained after enforcement of naval blockade — Pillaging and unlawfully destroying, appropriating or seizing property — Crimes against humanity — Contextual element of widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population — Person hors de combat in law of armed conflict and international criminal law — Whether criminal investigation to be instigated — Whether sufficient reason to believe crime committed to detriment of German and non-German nationalsInternational criminal law — War crimes — Crimes against humanity — Law of armed conflict — Armed conflict at sea — Humanitarian assistance and peacekeeping missions — Wilfully causing great suffering and serious injury to body or health — Deportation and forcible transfer — Humiliating and degrading treatment — Unjustifiably delaying return home of a person detained after enforcement of naval blockade — Pillaging and unlawfully destroying, appropriating or seizing property — Crimes against humanity — Contextual element of widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population — Person hors de 489combat — Whether criminal investigation to be instigated — Whether sufficient reason to believe crime committed to detriment of German and non-German nationalsSea — Armed conflict at sea — Treaties — Customary international law — Right to a naval blockade — Legal prerequisites — Status of merchant vessel breaching naval blockade — Status of goods on merchant vessel breaching naval blockade — Contraband — Enforcement of naval blockade on high seas — Naval blockade in law of armed conflict — Whether power to impose a naval blockade applicable — Whether criminal investigation to be instigated — Whether sufficient reason to believe crime committed to detriment of German and non-German nationalsJurisdiction — Universal jurisdiction — Extraterritorial jurisdiction in case of attack on marine traffic — Passive personality principle — Law of Germany including discretion not to exercise universal jurisdiction — Immunity from foreign criminal jurisdiction — The law of Germany

Queen Cotton

This chapter studies the language of President Lincoln’s naval blockade of Southern ports on April 19, 1861, which frames the South as a “rebellious state” and severely limits the lawful commercial activities that are allowed to take place in Southern coastal waters. This event catalyzes a long series of debates around diplomatic recognition, as well as revitalizes debates about property, sovereignty, and piracy. These debates taking place on an international stage, however, are expressions of anxieties regarding property and recognition (read: the recognition of the individual body as citizen) taking place in the South. This chapter reads Eliza McHatton Ripley’s From Flag to Flag: A Woman’s Adventures and Experiences in the South During the War, in Mexico, and in Cuba (1889) and Loreta Janeta Velazquez’s The Woman in Battle: A Narrative of the Exploits, Adventures, and Travels of Madame Loreta Janeta Velazquez (1876) alongside contemporaneous memoires that describe commercial during the blockade, to illustrate the pervasive anxieties regarding recognition and commercial life at this historical moment. In this case, the Confederacy’s lack of access to property, its isolation from international markets, and its deprivation of diplomatic recognition, is a reflection of the experiences of dispossession and lack of recognition endured at a personal scale by Southerners at this time period.