I was reading up on prize rules after doing some reading of the Jack Aubrey books, and I was surprised to see that at least according to Wikipedia they are still in force today (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prize_rules).
That got me thinking. If they are still in force today, was the US in violation of them during WWII by not confirming to the below:
Part IV, Art. 22 of the Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armaments, relates to submarine warfare. It states as follows
In their action with regard to merchant ships, submarines must conform to the rules of international law to which surface vessels are subject.
In particular, except in the case of persistent refusal to stop on being duly summoned, or of active resistance to visit or search, a warship,
whether surface vessel or submarine, may not sink or render incapable of navigation a merchant vessel without having first placed passengers, crew and ship's papers in a place of safety. For this purpose the ship's boats are not regarded as a place of safety unless the safety of the passengers and crew is assured, in the existing sea and weather conditions, by the proximity of land, or the presence of another vessel which is in a position to take them on board.
Yes!
But the prize and blockade rules which youre describing have largely fell out of favor with modern Navies. The technology of Submarine warfare kind of precludes a strict adherence to the Prize Rules, given that subs are so small, and their supplies so limited. It would be almost impossible to properly care for a single merchant crew, let alone dozens of ships worth, as they would have been forced to during a campaign like the Pacific Campaign.
But this wasnt always America's policy, after all one of the casus belli for American intervention in World War One was "freedom of the Seas", and specifically how Germany's unrestricted submarine campaign affected American FotS. So its pretty ironic that, by 1941, the US had done a complete 180 and actually accepted unrestricted submarine campaigns as a legitimate form of naval warfare. And after all, think of how Germany's sub campaigns varied between the wars. In 1914, Germany became a pariah for utilizing such a "barbaric" naval tactic, but by 1939 it was accepted as a legitimate act.
And, while I think that every western nation in the post-War era would say that they adhere to the Hague Conventions, and the concept of Freedom of the Seas, the proliferation of attack submarines suggests more than a tacit agreement that Prize Law is defunct. So I dont think youll see any American commanders tried posthumously for their actions in the Pacific.
There is also a huge grey area in international law as to what constitutes a valid military target. Karl Doenitz, commander of Germany's submarine forces in WW2, was sent to jail for (among other crimes) waging war against civilian shipping. Yet simultaneously, the Nuremberg court found him not guilty for waging war against armed merchant ships, which carried war supplies. How a submarine commander was supposed to tell the difference between the two, they never said. And that was and is the huge problem with submarine warfare in international law. How can a submarine commander differentiate between a merchant ship operating in service of an enemy, and a transport with "civilians" onboard?