Somali Pirates Seize Largest Ship Yet

[Falkenhayn]

Is the regulation against execution based on seperate national laws or international law?

[Jim Raynor]

Way to go Raynor. Miss the thread all about that on the first page of this forum?

Yes, I did. I assumed all pirate talk was going to be in this thread.

Anyway, an idea that just occurred to me is posting naval ships near known ports to prevent pirates from returning with their loot. No bombardment and subsequent controversy and civilian casualties, or having to patrol large areas of ocean. Just stick one of the USN's dozens of Oliver Hazard Perry frigates (which aren't good for much else these days) or a corvette near the port, and rotate the ship out every few weeks or months. The pirates can be tracked after they hijack a ship and take a lengthy period of time negotiating the ransom.

[Sea Skimmer]

Is the regulation against execution based on seperate national laws or international law?

The UN Convention on the Law of The Seas says you have to arrest pirates, and then take them to your own court, which can do as it wishes according to its own laws. However one of the Geneva conventions also bans summary execution (said to be any execution without trial) outright. So the only way to execute pirates is to convict them in court, and few nations have the death penalty for piracy at all now, so then the only way to execute them becomes to prove a specific pirate killed a specific person on a ship, convicting them of murder.

The same UN law of the seas convention BTW also states that only government vessels or aircraft can seize pirate ships, which means sadly we cannot just ask one group of pirates (or other mercenaries) to go out and kill all the other pirates, and seize their boats and gear as payment.

Anyway, an idea that just occurred to me is posting naval ships near known ports to prevent pirates from returning with their loot. No bombardment and subsequent controversy and civilian casualties, or having to patrol large areas of ocean. Just stick one of the USN's dozens of Oliver Hazard Perry frigates (which aren't good for much else these days) or a corvette near the port, and rotate the ship out every few weeks or months. The pirates can be tracked after they hijack a ship and take a lengthy period of time negotiating the ransom.

We already do that, and it doesn’t accomplish a thing. The pirates hold the crew and ships hostage, we can see this in plain sight but we don’t do anything because the politicians in charge refuse to go over the heads of the shipping companies. Those companies insist on paying ransoms rather then risk any loss of life, or just as importantly to them, any damage to the ship which might keep it out of revenue service even longer. It’s not like the pirates are making money by unloading the cargos and trying to sell them. Pirates used to do that in the 1990s in South East Asia, but the practice has all but halted amid increased security. Its all about kidnap and ransom now.

[Kanastrous]

The UN Convention on the Law of The Seas says you have to arrest pirates, and then take them to your own court, which can do as it wishes according to its own laws. However one of the Geneva conventions also bans summary execution (said to be any execution without trial) outright. So the only way to execute pirates is to convict them in court, and few nations have the death penalty for piracy at all now, so then the only way to execute them becomes to prove a specific pirate killed a specific person on a ship, convicting them of murder.

I suppose that one could always apply so much firepower against confirmed pirate vessels as to assure that no one will be left, to bring to court.

[White Haven]

And when you can 'confirm' a pirate vessel before it hits someone, you do just that. See: India. Usually, though, the only time you can confirm it is when it's not a pirate vessel, but a victim now loaded with pirates as well as crew. Of course it only takes one or two warships to blockade a known pirate port and shut it down, so I'm somewhat at a loss as to why that's not done, but that's another question. As for the lack of a death penalty for piracy...these are Somalis in question. Somalia is, on average, a shithole. Attempting piracy looks even more attractive if the price of failure is a stay in a first-world prison complex.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

I don't understand why there's such a jump from granting asylum to summary executions. What's wrong with arresting them and then taking them to court for their actions? It takes up more resources than killing them on the spot, yes, but it still gets them out of the shipping lanes and is much more humane.

Edit: Somehow missed White Haven's post. The price of failure still can be death even if you simply arrest pirates when you can, because incidents like the Indian ship's encounter show that pirates can die before even being captured.

[JCady]

I don't understand why there's such a jump from granting asylum to summary executions. What's wrong with arresting them and then taking them to court for their actions? It takes up more resources than killing them on the spot, yes, but it still gets them out of the shipping lanes and is much more humane.

I believe that it's because British law specifies that any criminal who has committed a crime for which sie can be executed in hir home nation automatically qualifies for political asylum "against" the death penalty.

[FSTargetDrone]

Whoops, what I just submitted about the freed ships has already been posted, so I'll delete my text here. Sorry about that.

[Kanastrous]

What about mining Somali harbors and approaches? Aren't there naval mines that can be set to detonate upon the approach of or contact with a large ship, while permitting small ships to pass?

That way fishermen and other honest operators in small boats can come and go, and efforts to bring a hijacked large ship into the area will invoke the risk of destroying it, plus those aboard.

[Isolder74]

What about mining Somali harbors and approaches? Aren't there naval mines that can be set to detonate upon the approach of or contact with a large ship, while permitting small ships to pass?

That way fishermen and other honest operators in small boats can come and go, and efforts to bring a hijacked large ship into the area will invoke the risk of destroying it, plus those aboard.

No good. Way to many Liabilities. The problem is that these pirates would care less if they killed the ship and crew off. Then it would be considered your fault that the ship was damaged or destroyed.

[Samuel]

What about mining Somali harbors and approaches? Aren't there naval mines that can be set to detonate upon the approach of or contact with a large ship, while permitting small ships to pass?

That way fishermen and other honest operators in small boats can come and go, and efforts to bring a hijacked large ship into the area will invoke the risk of destroying it, plus those aboard.

The pirates are using speed boats. Wouldn't work.

[Kanastrous]

What about mining Somali harbors and approaches? Aren't there naval mines that can be set to detonate upon the approach of or contact with a large ship, while permitting small ships to pass?

That way fishermen and other honest operators in small boats can come and go, and efforts to bring a hijacked large ship into the area will invoke the risk of destroying it, plus those aboard.

The pirates are using speed boats. Wouldn't work.

The idea's not to stop the speedboats, but to make it too hazardous to bring the captured large vessels into dock after they're seized.

But as Isolder points out there's a liability issue.

Although it's perverse that if, after placing mines and letting everyone know that they are there, we'd be found at fault for someone else's criminal decision to hijack a ship and deliberately run it into those mines.

[Ryan Thunder]

Although it's perverse that if, after placing mines and letting everyone know that they are there, we'd be found at fault for someone else's criminal decision to hijack a ship and deliberately run it into those mines.

It does make sense on a certain level. It would be as though, rather than threatening to punish theives directly for theft, we threatened to destroy what they stole, and by extension, punish the legitimate owners.

Actually wait, no, it's exactly like that.

[Kanastrous]

Although it's perverse that if, after placing mines and letting everyone know that they are there, we'd be found at fault for someone else's criminal decision to hijack a ship and deliberately run it into those mines.

It does make sense on a certain level. It would be as though, rather than threatening to punish theives directly for theft, we threatened to destroy what they stole, and by extension, punish the legitimate owners.

Actually wait, no, it's exactly like that.

We wouldn't be destroying anything, at all. We'd just be placing mines and alerting everyone involved to their general presence, if not their precise locations.

The decision to try and navigate mined waters aboard a stolen vessel, would entirely in the pirates' hands. It would be the pirates' choice to navigate those advertised-as-mined waters, that could lead to damage or destruction of the vessel.

And I suppose that the original owners would still be entitled to insurance compensation for the loss of the vessel. Although that would be no help at all, to the crew.

[Erik von Nein]

Um, how are they going to go about legally mining a waterway?

[Kanastrous]

Don't know about legalities. Just speculating regarding practicalities.