Strengthening Universal Jurisdiction for Maritime Piracy Trials to Enhance a Sustainable Anti-Piracy Legal System for Community Interests
1
Guanghua Law School, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310008, China
2
Law School, The University of Western Australia, Perth 6009, Australia
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: Keyuan Zou and Yen-Chiang Chang
Sustainability 2021, 13(13), 7268; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137268
Received: 19 May 2021
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Revised: 18 June 2021
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Accepted: 20 June 2021
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Published: 29 June 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Preserving Community Interests in Ocean Governance towards Sustainability)
Although universal jurisdiction over piracy has long existed in customary international law and international conventions, such as the Convention on the High Seas (HSC) and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the piracy situation has been changing. The subsidence of Somali piracy provides an opportunity for rethinking how to strengthen universal jurisdiction for maritime piracy trials to enhance a sustainable anti-piracy legal system. The incidents of Somali piracy have resulted in some new developments in exercising universal jurisdiction: the separation of seizing, prosecuting, and imprisoning States; the consideration of creative piracy prosecution mechanisms; the increased focus on land-based facilitation of piracy; enhanced international cooperation; and expanded universal jurisdiction. This leads to several main challenges in existing legal frameworks, including weaknesses in UNCLOS, the disharmony among international instruments, and defects in domestic piracy legislation. In order to sustain and improve the anti-piracy legal system, universal jurisdiction over piracy should be incrementally strengthened to support the prosecution of pirates by States. To address the trends and challenges, this article explores how the legal system can be enhanced in two respects: adjusting the basic provisions of universal jurisdiction over piracy and refining the relevant measures in exercising that jurisdiction to prosecute pirates.
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Keywords:
universal jurisdiction; maritime piracy; piracy trials; Somali piracy; maritime crime; sustainability; community interests
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Jin, J.; Techera, E. Strengthening Universal Jurisdiction for Maritime Piracy Trials to Enhance a Sustainable Anti-Piracy Legal System for Community Interests. Sustainability 2021, 13, 7268. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137268
AMA Style
Jin J, Techera E. Strengthening Universal Jurisdiction for Maritime Piracy Trials to Enhance a Sustainable Anti-Piracy Legal System for Community Interests. Sustainability. 2021; 13(13):7268. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137268
Chicago/Turabian StyleJin, Jing, and Erika Techera. 2021. "Strengthening Universal Jurisdiction for Maritime Piracy Trials to Enhance a Sustainable Anti-Piracy Legal System for Community Interests" Sustainability 13, no. 13: 7268. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137268
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