Counter-Piracy Law in Practice

About the author

Acknowledgements

Preface

1 Introduction

All things legal

On existing studies of counter-piracy

An ethnography of counter-piracy

The methodological approach

On related approaches

Organisation of the book

Literature

2 The law: legal debates on counter-piracy in the western Indian Ocean

Definitions of piracy: narrow or broad?

Locating jurisdiction, or the shall/may conundrum

UN Security Council bolstering legal authority

Piracy actors also have human rights

Seychelles' codification of UNCLOS, and then some

Concluding remarks

Literature

3 The approach: 'Following the law' in practice

Law as process

The primacy of practice, counter-piracy's emergence

The analytical building blocks

'Following the law' across key sites

Ethnographic methods and ethical pointers

Policies and laws as ethnographic data

Concluding remarks

Literature

4 The warship: maritime policing in the Indian Ocean

The political mandate

The ethnographic disappearance of law

Deciding upon the sources to intercept

Sources with a national 'filter'

Regulation guiding constabulary tasks

A gap in military police jurisdiction

'Urgent steps', or narrowing the gap

Expanding 'urgent steps' in practice

Concluding remarks

Literature

5 The courtroom: piracy prosecution in Seychelles

Characteristics of Seychelles' piracy trials

Identifying the accused in court . . . . . . or defining the 'Pirate Action Group'

Establishing common intention

Using the 'wrong' section in the 'right' way

The curious tendency of successful appeals

Concluding remarks

Literature

6 The implications: socio-legal conclusions on counter-piracy

Policy implications of ethnographic findings

Proving the illegal act of piracy

Codifying UNCLOS articles in domestic law

The warship's use of force

The constabulary function of navies

Human rights obligations

The limitations of law enforcement

Complementarity of the 'socio-' and the 'legal'

Index