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News Tips

IU criminal justice professor: Pirates, like terrorists, are subject to existing law

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 17, 2009

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Piracy taking place off the coast of Somalia is, from a legal perspective, very close to terrorism, and there are legal mechanisms for dealing with both, says Steve Russell, associate professor in the Indiana University Bloomington Department of Criminal Justice.

"Piracy is and always has been a crime of universal jurisdiction," Russell said. "The definition involves non-state actors threatening harm to innocent persons. In the case of terrorists, the motive is political. In the case of pirates, the motive is profit. The motive strikes me as a distinction that does not create a difference."

Because there were pirates before there was a United Nations, there were laws for responding to piracy before the recent spate of U.N. resolutions on Somalia, Russell said. For example, if one nation violated another's sovereignty in "hot pursuit" of pirates, it might owe reparations, but the violation wasn't an act of war. Similarly, when the U.S. and its allies invaded Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the action was legal without regard to U.N. resolutions.

"The U.S. first made demands that the accused be either put on trial or turned over for trial," Russell said. "The Taliban refused. That is how piracy was handled when hot pursuit was not an issue. Once again, reparations might be owed for collateral damage; but any nation that has the power has the right to suppress piracy, and I have yet to see a sensible distinction between piracy and terrorism."

Right now, Somalia has no effective government to which a demand to turn over the pirates or to try them could be addressed, Russell said, just as Afghanistan under the Taliban had no internationally recognized government to respond to a demand for turning over the Sept. 11 plotters.

"It is good to see attention being paid to legalities in the Somalia pirate situation even if the attention may be somewhat excessive," Russell said. "I just wish the Bush Administration had paid similar attention to the customary international law dealing with violent non-state actors before declaring a 'war on terror' and making up doctrines to address an allegedly new situation that was not, in fact, new at all.

"International law does not condone the torture of alleged pirates, and it does not condone the torture of alleged terrorists, or holding people indefinitely without charges or trial," he said. "It's not necessary to make up doctrines that run roughshod over human rights to deal with the very real problems of piracy or terrorism."

Steve Russell became a university professor after retiring from 17 years as a trial court judge in Texas. His areas of research include legal issues regarding national sovereignty and its relationship with globalization. He can be reached at 812-855-2601 or swrussel@indiana.edu.

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