http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/nyregion/22pirate.html?hp
Ani – care to weigh in here? You think they’ll start teaching a course at HLS called “Pirate Law”? Cause that would be awesome.
“We are expecting this to be a very long trial proceeding,” said Omar Jamal, the director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in Minneapolis, which helps Somali immigrants with legal and social issues. “How long has it been since the United States tried a pirate? They must dig through the books for precedents.”
April 22, 2009 at 2:16 am
It’s not very hard to try a pirate, even if it hasn’t been done in a while. The traditional rule (one of the few bits of international law that anyone follows, or followed), is that pirates on the high seas are hostes humani generis, that is, enemies of humankind, and therefore may be captured, tried, and sentenced by any nation that apprehends them. That is still the rule: Article 105 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea allows any nation to seize a pirate ship and its crew, and dispose of the property and try the people as it wishes.
The United States has not ratified the UNCLOS, but it agrees with most of the provisions, and considers itself bound by Art. 105, as do most other nations of the world.
This basically means that there will be no jurisdictional issues at all. The only issues left will be those common to all crimes, and if this dude was pulled off a pirate ship, he’s not going to do well in court.
I don’t think they’ll need to use the hostage-taking statute, but maybe they could if they wanted. It doesn’t really matter if he came on board the ship seeking medical attention – in fact, as far as having jurisdiction, it wouldn’t have mattered if they’d kidnapped him from Somalia.