Newport Manual on the Law of Naval Warfare (2023)

The Newport Manual on the Law of Naval Warfare is a non-binding expert restatement published in International Law Studies in 2023. A second edition followed in 2025. Written by an international group led by James Kraska and Raul Pedrozo, it presents rules and commentary intended for operational use. It is not a treaty, judgment or official United States manual, and each proposition derives authority only from the treaty law, custom or national law supporting it.

Content and status

The Manual addresses targeting, naval platforms, blockade, exclusion zones, neutral shipping, visit and search, contraband, capture and prize. Its black-letter format makes contested legal questions appear as operational rules, while commentary states the authors' supporting analysis.

Publication by the US Naval War College's journal does not convert the work into United States government policy. The Department of Defense Law of War Manual and national service manuals are separate official or departmental instruments, themselves subject to their stated status.

Relationship to San Remo

The San Remo Manual (1994) is an earlier non-binding expert restatement. The Newport authors reassess aspects of its methodology and conclusions in light of claimed state practice and operational requirements. Difference between the manuals demonstrates contestation; it does not establish that the later publication displaced the earlier one or changed customary law.

Statecraft significance

The Manual provides a structured vocabulary for analysing wartime interference with seaborne trade. It can help planners distinguish blockade, visit and search, diversion, capture, destruction and neutral rights. It does not authorise peacetime interdiction, sanctions enforcement or action against a so-called shadow fleet outside armed conflict.

Application to a real operation requires conflict classification, state practice, treaty status, national authority and facts. Policy scenarios involving Taiwan, the Black Sea or price-cap enforcement are not legal holdings of the Manual.

See also

San Remo Manual (1994) · Visit and search doctrine · Naval blockade · Prize law and prize courts · Economic statecraft

Sources

• James Kraska, Raul Pedrozo and others, The Newport Manual on the Law of Naval Warfare, first edition, International Law Studies 101 (2023).
• Newport Manual Expert Group, Newport Manual on the Law of Naval Warfare, Second Edition, International Law Studies 105 (2025).
• International Institute of Humanitarian Law, San Remo Manual.
• United States Department of Defense, Law of War Manual, updated July 2023.
• United Kingdom Ministry of Defence, The Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict (2004).
• International Committee of the Red Cross, Customary IHL database.