Background

The San Remo Manual was prepared during the period 1988–94 by a group of legal and naval experts participating in their personal capacity in a series of Round Tables convened for this purpose by the International Institute of Humanitarian Law. A preliminary Round Table on International Humanitarian Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, held in San Remo in 1987 on the initiative of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law, in co-operation with the University of Pisa and the University of Syracuse in New York, discussed the need for a modernisation of the law applicable to armed conflicts at sea. The Declaration adopted at that meeting noted that:

It was only in the subsequent meeting at Madrid, convened by the International Institute of Humanitarian Law with the support of the Spanish Red Cross in 1989, that participants decided on a plan of action to study systematically these issues and to draft a restatement of the contemporary law applicable to armed conflicts at sea together with some proposals for progressive development.