Opinion ID: 902495
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Modern Piracy

Text: Mention “pirates” to most Americans and you are more likely to evoke Johnny Depp’s droll depiction of Captain Jack Sparrow than concern about the international scourge of 3 piracy that long ago led most civilized states to declare such marauders the enemy of all mankind. In unstable parts of the world, piracy is serious business, and these troubled waters have seen a resurgence in pirate attacks, both successful and attempted. See, e.g., INT’L MAR. ORG., MSC.4/ CIRC.180, REPORTS ON ACTS OF PIRACY AND ARMED ROBBERY AGAINST SHIPS: ANNUAL REPORT – 2011, at 2 (2012); INT’L MAR. ORG., MSC.4/CIRC.169, REPORTS ON ACTS OF PIRACY AND ARMED ROBBERY AGAINST SHIPS: ANNUAL REPORT – 2010, at 2 (2011). Pirate attacks have become increasingly daring, as well as commonplace, with pirates targeting large commercial vessels in transit, hijacking these ships, and ransoming the crews. See W. Michael Reisman & Bradley T. Tennis, Combating Piracy in East Africa, 35 YALE J. INT’L. L. ONLINE 14, 16–18 (2009). These predatory activities have proven especially lucrative in the Gulf of Aden (situated between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa and bounded by a long stretch of Somalia’s coast), where pirates can exploit a key trade route undeterred by Somalia’s unstable government. See Milena Sterio, The Somali Piracy Problem: A Global Puzzle Necessitating A Global Solution, 59 AM. U. L. REV. 1449, 1450–51 (2010).