Law of the Sea

At the end of last week, Kenya opened a special court to try suspected pirates operating from Somalia in the Gulf of Aden (see BBC Report here and here) The Court, which is funded by a number of international organizations and States including the UN, the EU, Australia and Canada, is a significant step in the fight against piracy. All States have universal jurisdiction under customary international law and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to prosecute captured pirates but as Douglas Guilfoyle explained in a post here on EJIL:Talk! last year there are a number of practical and legal difficulties with capturing, detaining and prosecuting suspected pirates. He stated that:  One of the problems with the current attempt to combat piracy is that though, as a matter of international law, all States have jurisdiction to try pirates, few States have adequate national laws for the prosecution of pirates who have not committed offences against either their nationals or flag vessels. This has lead to some startling results, such as the German…