piracy
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piracy
piracy
[′pī·rə·sē]Piracy
piracy
piracy
Sabotage and vandalism. See software piracy and Internet piracy.Piracy
robbery at sea; in international law, the illegal seizure, robbing, or sinking of merchant and other civilian vessels on the high seas by privately owned or state-owned ships. During wartime an attack on the merchant vessels of neutral countries by warships, submarines, and combat aircraft is equivalent to piracy.
Historically, as long as there has been navigation there has also been piracy. For example, in ancient Greece piracy was regarded as a legal way of getting rich, on a par with maritime trade. During the Middle Ages pirates (especially the corsairs) engaged in more than robbery: they seized bondsmen, traded in slaves, plundered coastal cities and settlements and demanded ransom from them, and even collected tribute. Some countries used piracy in the struggle to rule the seas and seize new lands. In the 17th century, for example, England and France used pirates (flibustiers) to fight against Spain and to seize colonies in America.
From the mid-17th century to the second half of the 19th century, legalized robbery at sea (in Russian, kaperstvo) was widely practiced by the major sea powers. For a long time, this infringed on the interests of other nations and undermined the principle of freedom of navigation on the high seas. Attempts to restrict piracy and categorize it as an international crime date from the Roman period.
In modern international law, customary norms have developed, according to which pirate ships and their crews are not to be protected by any state. A pirate ship may be pursued on the high seas, and, if it offers resistance, it may be sunk by the warships of any country. The crew of a pirate ship is subject to criminal prosecution and punishment; the ship itself may be confiscated, under the laws of the country that captures it. Warships of any state have the right to stop a vessel if they have sufficient grounds to suspect that it is engaged in piracy.
The problem of combating piracy by states emerged during the period of the Italian-German intervention in Spain (1936— 39), when German and Italian submarines made piratical attacks on merchant ships of the USSR, Great Britain, France, and other countries. On Sept. 14, 1937, the participants in the International Conference to End Submarine Piracy in the Mediterranean signed the Nyon Agreement, which called for collective measures against piratical acts by submarines. After World War II (1939–45), Chiang Kai-shek’s forces made a number of piratical attacks on the merchant ships of various countries (1953–54). In the 1960’s and 1970’s instances of piracy against small merchant and fishing vessels have become more common in the South China Sea, the Andaman Sea, and the Philippine Sea.
The customary norms of international law on combating piracy were codified in the Geneva Convention on the High Seas (1958).
V. I. MENZHINSKII