Somali Piracy and the Disappearance of Nexus in the Application of Universal Jurisdiction

• In Event: 033 - Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 18. Procedures and Justice 2

Abstract

This paper is an empirical examination of the application of universal jurisdiction to piracy jure gentium, and details the nexus requirement inherent in its application. While many in the legal community suggest that the application of universality to piracy jure gentium does not, by definition, require a nexus, I demonstrate that this presupposition is in fact erroneous and that historically there has always been a connection between the seizing and the adjudicating State. This normative connection abruptly changed with the advent of third-party jurisdictional piracy courts in Kenya and the Seychelles to address Somali piracy. The subitaneous change in the application of nexus to maritime piracy only off the coast of Somalia, and nowhere else, and only to Somalis, and no one else, illuminates the law as both an instrument of social inequality wielded by powerful States and actors, and a reification of social inequality resulting from structural power disparities.

Author

• Jeffrey T. Tirshfield, University of California, San Diego