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A vessel sailing ignorantly (i.e., with neither presumptive nor actual knowledge) to ablockaded port is not liable to capture, although it may be turned away from the blockadedarea. 17913.11 NAVAL MINESNaval mines are lawful weapons, i.e., they are not illegal per se. 180 However, specificrules apply to their use. These rules have developed largely to mitigate the risk these mines poseto neutral vessels. 181 Different rules apply to landmines. 18213.11.1 Background on Naval Mines. Naval mines have been used for area denial,coastal and harbor defense, anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare, and blockade.Naval mines are sometimes classified as either armed or controlled mines, withcontrolled mines having no destructive capability until affirmatively activated by an armingorder (thereby becoming armed mines). 183179 Yeaton v. Fry, 9 U.S. 335, 342-43 (1809) (Marshall, C.J.) (“Hispaniola is excepted absolutely from the policy;but other ports are within the terms of the voyage insured, if they be not blockaded. It is their character, asblockaded ports, which excludes them from the insurance. Their being excepted by this character is thought tojustify the opinion, that it is the risk attending this character which produces the exception, and which is the riskexcepted. The risk of a blockaded port, as a blockaded port, is the risk incurred by breaking the blockade. This isdefined by public law. Sailing from Tobago for Curracoa, knowing Curracoa to be blockaded, would have incurredthis risk, but sailing for that port, without such knowledge, did not incur it.”).180 Refer to § 6.5 (Lawful Weapons).181 For example, A. PEARCE HIGGINS, THE HAGUE PEACE CONFERENCES AND OTHER INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCESCONCERNING THE LAWS AND USAGES OF WAR. TEXT OF CONVENTIONS WITH COMMENTARIES 328-29 (1909) (“TheRusso-Japanese War drew the attention of the world to the deadly results produced by floating mines. Though notexpressly mentioned in Count Benckendorff’s Circular, the laying of torpedoes, etc. (pose de torpilles, etc.) wasincluded among the subjects for consideration. Mines were employed in the Russo-Japanese War by bothbelligerents, and hundreds either broke adrift from their moorings or, not be anchored at all, floated into the highseas and caused serious loss of life to neutrals long after the conclusion of the war. In the course of the discussion ofthe British proposal in Committee, the Chinese delegate made the following declaration which brings out stronglythe dangers to which neutral shipping is exposed by their employment: ‘At the same time, the Delegation [of China]desires to bring to the knowledge of the delegates certain facts which it ventures to hope will suggest theexamination of this important proposition in a widely humanitarian sense. The Chinese Government is even to-dayobliged to furnish vessels engaged in coastal navigation with special apparatus to raise and destroy floating mineswhich are found not only on the open sea but even in its territorial waters. In spite of the precautions which havebeen taken a very considerable number of coasting vessels, fishing boats, junks and sampans have been lost with allhands without the details of these disasters being known to the western world. It is calculated from five to sixhundred of our countrymen engaged in their peaceful occupations have there met a cruel death in consequence ofthese dangerous engines of war.’”) (amendment in original).182 Refer to § 6.12 (Landmines, Booby-Traps, and Other Devices).183 2007 NWP 1-14M 9.2.1 (“For purposes of this publication, naval mines are classified as armed or controlledmines. Armed mines are either emplaced with all safety devices withdrawn, or are armed following emplacement,so as to detonate when preset parameters (if any) are satisfied. Controlled mines have no destructive capability untilaffirmatively activated by some form of arming order (whereupon they become armed mines).”); 1989 NWP 99.2.1 (“For purposes of this publication, naval mines are classified as armed or controlled mines. Armed mines areeither emplaced with all safety devices withdrawn, or are armed following emplacement, so as to detonate when892