Piracy

Introduction

Although once thought to be principally of historical interest, piracy is once again a field of scholarly contention, not all of it productive. The upsurge in academic interest coincides with renewed concern in maritime safety bodies and amidst fears that contemporary terrorist organisations may use hijacked vessels as weapons against ports or international commerce. This chapter addresses several long-standing misconceptions about piracy as defined under UNCLOS, including criticisms that this definition is narrower than the customary rule; excludes politically motivated violence (e.g. terrorist attacks); and that it wrongly excludes unlawful attacks made by state vessels. Whatever commentators might wish, the UNCLOS rule is the only generally applicable one and the only clear candidate for having customary status.

The academic debate has several principal causes. First, the term ‘piracy’ only acquired some settled legal meaning relatively recently. In historical discussion pirates are usually contrasted with state-licensed ‘privateers’. However, the term ‘pirate’ was also used to describe a range of activities in the Renaissance, many of which were either lawful or seen as self-help, such as exacting taxes on vessels using disputed sea lanes. It was thus common for sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sovereigns to refer to political allies as ‘privateers’ and to enemies as ‘pirates’. Second, confusion often resulted from failing to distinguish between piracy at international law and various national offences, more widely or narrowly drawn, called piracy. This problem is compounded by international law's reliance on national authorities to prosecute and punish the offence.