LOL so much for international conventions on human rights

So you were wondering why it was the Somali pirates were able to get away with it in this day and age of naval super powers?

wonder no more



bother ye not about torture

Gwynne Dyer

http://www.defense-update.com/products/l/LRAD.htm

Gwynne Dyer please be explaining the invasions of Iraq and Afganistan and the many human rights violations of a certain superpower in relation to international law

http://www.gwynnedyer.com/

I think he is wrong

my understanding was that universal jurisdiction still exists for piratical acts- because piracy is breach of jus cogens

that has never changed, as far as I am aware

i.e. a rule of jus cogens will actually override any treaty that is inconsistent with it - even the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea

this is what we call a peremptory norm of international law

methinks his international law is not up to scratch

if States choose not to make use of their legal powers, don't blame international law for that

International law?

Send me some... I'm short of toilet paper.

There is only one law of relations and Thucydides stated it 2500 years ago...

http://www.quotes.net/quote/18011

A thread about piracy in international law implies that international law somehow has some validity.

If we can show that international law has no validity, we render the rest of the argument moot.

Even you can accept that?

I have actually done a fair bit of research lately on limitations in the practise of war and it is obvious the key issue is cultural acceptance of limitations, not the "legitimacy" of the limitations :>

international law has validity because States have decided that it does

end of story

this is NOT a thread about the validity of international law

it is a thread about piracy and human rights under international law

got that?

right move along please

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article5183710.ece

that article is even weirder

powerless?? what the fuck is going on??

the Naval forces of ANY state can capture ANY pirate on the High Seas and have that pirate tried before ANY court in ANY country

nothing can be clearer and simpler than that

by not capturing them and prosecuting them by force, it's sending a dangerous message and allowing them to hold the world to ransom

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/somalia/3363258/Pirates-protected-from-EU-task-force-by-human-rights.html

I think that goes some way to explaining it and if they took the pirates back to the UK they could claim asylum hence the standoff.

Just blowing them out of the water can have third party consequences as the Indian Navy's engagement with the Thai fishing boat demonstrates - Thai nationals went down with their ship that had been captured by pirates and the crew locked up below decks.

I agree there can be all sorts of casualties and complications

as well as practical and political consequences of taking action

the reality is noone wants to get their hands dirty

I feel the UK is overstating the difficulties with the asylum issue

states have a general responsibility to clean up piracy and not let pirates gain the upper hand

I'm also struggling to understand the human rights issue

why is this a barrier to prosecution?

everyone in New Zealand has human rights, but hundreds of kiwis get prosecuted and thrown in jail every day

there are so many unanswered questions here, that to me fail to explain why states are acting so timidly

for example why did the Danes decide they could not prosecute the pirates? the article does not say

the human rights element comes into it in that they don't wish to hand them over to the transitional government of Somalia as they could well end up murdered

given that Somalia is a failed state anyway the legal status of 'the government' is moot

they did not think a prosecution could be successful, which would leave them anyway with the dilemma of what to do with them and they might just claim asylum status anyway once on European soil

similar dilemma I guess to the gitmo prisoners without the convenience of a european gitmo

The key problem is that America's NATO allies have effectively abandoned the historical legal rules permitting irregular fighters to be tried in special military courts (or, in the case of pirates, admiralty courts) in favor of a straightforward criminal-justice model. Although piracy is certainly a criminal offense, treating it like bank robbery or an ordinary murder case presents certain problems for Western states.

To begin with, common criminals cannot be targeted with military force. There are other issues as well. Last April the British Foreign Office reportedly warned the Royal Navy not to detain pirates, since this might violate their "human rights" and could even lead to claims of asylum in Britain. Turning the captives over to Somali authorities is also problematic -- since they might face the head- and hand-chopping rigors of Shariah law. Similar considerations have confounded U.S. government officials in their discussions of how to confront this new problem of an old terror at sea.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122705719422839565.html

pirates were traditionally the "enemies of mankind" so I personally don't have any problem with them being handed over to the Somalian authorities, failed state or not, to be dealt with in any way Somalia wants to

I don't know enough about political asylum/refugee laws to know how big a problem this is - I find it unpalatable that an international criminal of the most serious order could be afforded the protection of asylum in ANY state

but i suppose the modern law of human rights might cause some problems here

also if alleged pirates are ultimately acquitted what does the state do with them? might be a problem

the result of all this handwringing and expressions of powerlessness will unfortunately be an increase of terror on the high seas and loss of safe rights of passage, ultimately even the freedom of the high seas will be eroded

hmmm...the thread is not about validity of international law JH, but piracy does pose some challenges to the concept of international law. for example, piracy is jus cogens - but the very notion of jus cogens is quite problematic....how can there be peremptory norms in a body of law which is fundamentally based on consent of State parties to be bound by it? some suggest that jus cogens does not exist. if that is true, then the prohibition on piracy is just another instance of customary international law with no 'special' status.

i should add JH that I don't share this view of jus cogens - though i don't see it as an entirely unproblematic area. butwhat is more interesting about piracy is probably the potential conflict between prohibition on piracy and the pirate's human rights. Arguably any State which captures a Somali pirate and purports to hand him over to Somalia where there are no guarantees that his right to life and right to be free from torture will be observed, may risk breaching it's obligations under international law. and if you regard human rights as part of jus cogens, then you have a conflict between two jus cogens norms....possibly

JH brings up an interesting point: if Somalia is a failed state, why does it matter?

I'll use a very close analogy: peacekeeping in Somalia in 92-94. Visiting forces didn't need to sign Status of Forces Agreements or similar with the Somali government, because there was no Somali government. Right now, if we claim there is no effective Somali government, there is absolutely no need to worry about the rights of that government.

If I were an enterprising admiral I'd declare Somalia "terre nullius" (sp?) and the sea "mare nullius"
That, again, has analogies with British/American action off the Barbary Coast, where there was no single government.

And the wonderful thing about taking this view is that if someone says that there is a Somali government, we just use the precedent of Iraq 2003 and the presence of "pirates of mass destruction" (PMD) as justification.

I don't subscribe to that theory, but I understand the argument and where you are coming from

it can be argued that states themselves have decided that some norms are so fundamental they cannot be contracted out of - for the good of the international community

this will only apply to values that are important to protect for the safety and security of the whole world, the entire international community

which explains WHY prohibition of piracy is jus cogens or exists as a fundamental norm of international law - because EVERY state relies on the safety and freedom of the high seas, for all sorts of reasons

in terms of international law theory, it;s simply a question of whether all norms of customary international law exist on an equal, or whether they can be ranked, with some more "fundamental" than others (the school off thought you refer to BG denies that sort of ranking as a nonsense, I understand)

this is actually a really interesting topic here, which I now admit I superficially glossed over initially

to what extent do pirates have human rights?

part of me wants to deny that have any, being "enemies of all humanity" - a notion that goes back for centuries - but in the 21st century that argument is probably no longer sustainable

or I can't imagine courts holding that pirates have "forfeited" all rights by virtue of their err.... trade

I agree with vads here to the extent that once captured, it should not matter which hunk of land they are dumped on - then the pirates are subject to the local jurisdiction. if there is no operative government. too bad.

why should we have to worry about their human rights at that point?

however BG raises an interesting alternative argument - to what extent are the captors of pirates responsible to them, and to what extent are international responsibilities in terms of human rights engaged? this is not an area that international law has really grappled with yet

Why capture them at all? Sink on sight.

the easiest solution is to acknowledge that there is no effective government in Somalia and thus they have no territorial waters or even territorial integrity or citizenship to speak of

terra nullis I shall call it

anything goes

create your own reality

they'll soon get the message and desist their activities

The ships are often loaded with hostages for that very reason.

Omelettes require broken eggs

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/pirates.htm

an interesting read

"what amounts to state-sponsored piracy by official Chinese craft"





that's disturbing - that would mean China is party to an international crime.

Privateering is a venerable tradition...