Submarine communication cables

According to Article 54 of The Hague Regulations (1907), submarine cables connecting an occupied territory with a neutral territory shall not be seized or destroyed except in case of absolute necessity . This means that, under the traditional law, submarine communications cables are not protected from desfruction if they connect enemy territory with the territory of an ally of the enemy or if they connect enemy territory, which is not occupied, with neutral territory. Moreover, Article 54 is limited to land warfare and, therefore, does not necessarily provide for interference with submarine communications cables in sea areas beyond the outer limit of the territorial sea. The San Remo Manual has not necessarily contributed to an improvement of the protection of submarine communications cables, it merely provides that belligerents shall take care to avoid damage to cables [...] laid on the sea-bed which do not exclusively serve the belligerents . ... 

Today, submarine communications cables are the backbone of international data traffic. Submarine cables carry over 95 % of the world s international voice, data, and video traffic, including almost 100 % of transoceanic Internet ocean... 

New developments involve optical fibre transmission cables which have a high plastic content and plastics also play their part in other transmission media—in communications satellites and submarine cables and at a more mundane level in the structure of telephone poles traditionally made of timber or, in some cases, steel. 

By the end of the nineteenth century, applications of electric power were well established and proliferating. Communication by telegraph, demonstrated by Samuel F. B. Morse in 1843, had been established between North America and Europe by means of submarine cables. One-half million telephones were in use (2), and electric lighting for homes and industries was in growing demand. Electricity was being used to drive trains and street cars and to run the machines of new industries. 

Keywords Law of naval warfare Warships Submarines Unmanned maritime systems Submarine communications cables Hospital ships Merchant vessels Methods and means of naval warfare Naval mines Torpedoes Blockade Exclusion zones Naval bombardment Protected persons... 

In view of the overall importance of submarine communications cables, it is doubtful whether their wide exclusion from the categories of protected objects in the law of naval warfare may still be considered as properly reflecting the current legal situation. Unfortunately, States have neglected this issue not only in the context of the law of armed conflict but also in the context of the international law of the sea. Therefore, any allegation of an extended protection cannot be based on State practice. 

The desire to develop submarines for use in warfare, particularly between World War 1 and World War 11, spurred advances in ocean exploration. In the 1930 s, Americans Otis Barton and William Beebe developed the bathysphere. A pressure-resistant spherical steel apparatus weighing 2,025 kilograms, the bathysphere could descend more than 900 meters, six times the depth that could be reached by helmeted divers. The bathysphere was connected to a ship on the surface by heavy cables and a hose that held electric and communication wires. 

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