The Paris convention on submarine cables is signed
Representatives of the principal cable-owning and maritime states signed the Convention for the Protection of Submarine Telegraph Cables at Paris. It obliged parties to criminalise wilful or negligent damage to cables, required cable ships to display distinguishing signals and other vessels to keep clear, set distances for fishing gear, and provided indemnity for gear sacrificed to avoid damaging a cable. It entered into force on 1 May 1888 and, through an automatic renewal clause, has never lapsed.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- The Convention for the Protection of Submarine Telegraph Cables · international convention · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Convention for the Protection of Submarine Telegraph Cables
Supports the signature and entry-into-force dates, the substance of the criminal-liability, signalling, fishing-distance and gear-indemnity provisions, the automatic renewal mechanism and the report that the convention remains in force for 36 states parties. V55 verification basis: NOT opened; the provisions are summarised from retrieved descriptions of the text, including the NOAA general counsel explanation, and nothing is quoted. The 36-party figure was not checked against a depositary list.
Signatory states, Paris; text held by the Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore, and reproduced by the ICPC · 1884-03-14 · Partly verified
Convention for the Protection of Submarine Telegraph Cables, signed at Paris 14 March 1884, in force 1 May 1888; text at cil.nus.edu.sg and iscpc.org