Piracy and Armed Robbery at Sea: The Legal Framework for Counter-Piracy Operations in Somalia and the Gulf of Aden

Robin Geiss · Anna Petrig

feb 2011 · OUP Oxford

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Since 2008 increasing pirate activities in Somalia, the Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean have once again drawn the international community's attention to piracy and armed robbery at sea. States are resolved to repress these impediments to the free flow of trade and navigation. To this end a number of multinational counter-piracy missions have been deployed to the region. This book describes the enforcement powers that States may rely upon in their quest to repress piracy in the larger Gulf of Aden region. The piracy rules of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the legal safeguards applicable to maritime interception operations are scrutinized before the analysis turns to the criminal prosecution of pirates and armed robbers at sea. The discussion includes so-called shiprider agreements, the transfers of alleged offenders to regional states, the jurisdictional bases for prosecuting pirates, and the feasibility of an international(ized) venue for their trial. In addressing a range of relevant issues, this book presents a detailed and comprehensive up-to-date analysis of the legal issues pertaining to the repression of piracy and armed robbery at sea and assesses whether the currently existing legal regime is still adequate to effectively counter piracy in the 21st century.

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Robin Geiss is Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Potsdam, Germany. Formerly he worked as a legal adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva Anna Petrig, is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law in Freiburg (Germany), where she is in charge of the Sea Piracy Project. She is admitted to the Bar of New York (USA) and of the Canton of Berne (Switzerland).