The Second International Peace Conference at The Hague expressed the wish "that the preparation of regulations relative to the laws and customs of naval war should figure in the programme of the next Conference". This wish induced the Institute of International Law to appoint a committee in 1910 "to search and choose the studies which may be of the most utility for the preparation of the Peace Conference and organize their discussion by the Institute". On the proposal of this committee it was decided to prepare regulations concerning the laws and customs of war at sea. A special committee, with Professor Fauchille as rapporteur, prepared a draft manual analogous to the Oxford Manual on Land Warfare of 1880. At its session in 1913, the Institute adopted the text below.