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

Heading: the piracy charges

Text: In most cases, the criminal law of the United States does not reach crimes committed by foreign nationals in foreign locations against foreign interests. Two judicial presumptions promote this outcome. The first is the presumption against the extraterritorial effect of statutes: “When a statute gives no clear indication of an extraterritorial application, it has none.” Morrison v. Nat’l Austl. Bank Ltd., 130 S. Ct. 2869, 2878 (2010). The second is the judicial presumption that “an act of Congress ought never to be construed to violate the law of nations if any other possible construction remains,” Murray v. 8 Schooner Charming Betsy, 6 U.S. (2 Cranch) 64, 118 (1804)—the so-called Charming Betsy canon. Because international law itself limits a state’s authority to apply its laws beyond its borders, see RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW §§ 402–03, Charming Betsy operates alongside the presumption against extraterritorial effect to check the exercise of U.S. criminal jurisdiction. Neither presumption imposes a substantive limit on Congress’s legislative authority, but they do constrain judicial inquiry into a statute’s scope. Piracy, however, is no ordinary offense. The federal piracy statute clearly applies extraterritorially to “[w]hoever, on the high seas, commits the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations,” even though that person is only “afterwards brought into or found in the United States.” 18 U.S.C. § 1651. Likewise, through the principle of universal jurisdiction, international law permits states to “define and prescribe punishment for certain offenses recognized by the community of nations as of universal concern.” RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW § 404; see United States v. Yunis, 924 F.2d 1086, 1091 (D.C. Cir. 1991). And of all such universal crimes, piracy is the oldest and most widely acknowledged. See, e.g., Kenneth C. Randall, Universal Jurisdiction Under International Law, 66 TEX. L. REV. 785, 791 (1988). “Because he commits hostilities upon the subjects and property of any or all nations, without any regard to right or duty, or any pretence of public authority,” the pirate is “hostis humani generis,” United States v. Brig Malek Adhel, 43 U.S. (2 How.) 210, 232 (1844)—in other words, “an enemy of the human race,” United States v. Smith, 18 (5 Wheat.) U.S. 153, 161 (1820). Thus, “all nations [may punish] all persons, whether natives or foreigners, who have committed this offence against any persons whatsoever, with whom they are in amity.” Id. at 162. 9 Universal jurisdiction is not some idiosyncratic domestic invention but a creature of international law. Unlike the average criminal, a pirate may easily find himself before an American court despite committing his offense on the other side of the globe. Ali’s situation is a bit more complicated, though. His indictment contains no straightforward charge of piracy. Rather, the government accuses him of two inchoate offenses relating to piracy: conspiracy to commit piracy and aiding and abetting piracy. On their face, both ancillary statutes apply generally and without exception: § 2 to “[w]hoever . . . aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures” the commission of “an offense against the United States,” 18 U.S.C. § 2(a) (emphasis added), and § 371 to persons who “do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy” to “commit any offense against the United States,” 18 U.S.C. § 371 (emphasis added). But so powerful is the presumption against extraterritorial effect that even such generic language is insufficient rebuttal. See Small v. United States, 544 U.S. 388 (2005). That leaves both statutes ambiguous as to their application abroad, requiring us to resort to interpretive canons to guide our analysis. Given this ambiguity in the extraterritorial scope of the two ancillary statutes, we consider whether applying them to Ali’s actions is consistent with international law. Conducting this Charming Betsy analysis requires parsing through international treaties, employing interpretive canons, and delving into drafting history. Likewise, because the two ancillary statutes are “not so broad as to expand the extraterritorial reach of the underlying statute,” United States v. Yakou, 428 F.3d 241, 252 (D.C. Cir. 2005), we also conduct a separate analysis to determine the precise contours of § 1651’s extraterritorial scope. Ultimately, Ali’s assault on 10 his conspiracy charge prevails for the same reason the attack on the aiding and abetting charge fails.
We begin with Ali’s charge of aiding and abetting piracy. Aiding and abetting is a theory of criminal liability, not a separate offense, United States v. Ginyard, 511 F.3d 203, 211 (D.C. Cir. 2008)—one that allows a defendant who “aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures” commission of a crime to be punished as a principal, 18 U.S.C. § 2(a). “All that is necessary is to show some affirmative participation which at least encourages the principal offender to commit the offense, with all its elements, as proscribed by the statute.” United States v. Raper, 676 F.2d 841, 850 (D.C. Cir. 1982). From Ali’s perspective, it is not enough that acts of piracy were committed on the high seas and that he aided and abetted them. Rather, he believes any acts of aiding and abetting he committed must themselves have occurred in extraterritorial waters and not merely supported the capture of the CEC Future on the high seas. Ali’s argument involves two distinct (though closely related) inquiries. First, does the Charming Betsy canon pose any obstacle to prosecuting Ali for aiding and abetting piracy? For we assume, absent contrary indication, Congress intends its enactments to comport with international law. Second, is the presumption against extraterritoriality applicable to acts of aiding and abetting piracy not committed on the high seas?
Section 1651 criminalizes “the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations.” Correspondence between the domestic and international definitions is essential to exercising 11 universal jurisdiction. Otherwise, invocation of the magic word “piracy” would confer universal jurisdiction on a nation and vest its actions with the authority of international law. See Randall, supra, at 795. As a domestic matter, doing so may be perfectly legal. But because Charming Betsy counsels against interpreting federal statutes to contravene international law, we must satisfy ourselves that prosecuting Ali for aiding and abetting piracy would be consistent with the law of nations. Though § 1651’s invocation of universal jurisdiction may comport with international law, that does not tell us whether § 2’s broad aider and abettor liability covers conduct neither within U.S. territory nor on the high seas. Resolving that difficult question requires examining precisely what conduct constitutes piracy under the law of nations. Luckily, defining piracy is a fairly straightforward exercise. Despite not being a signatory, the United States has recognized, via United Nations Security Council resolution, that the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS”) “sets out the legal framework applicable to combating piracy and armed robbery at sea.” S.C. Res. 2020, U.N. Doc. S/Res/2020, at 2 (Nov. 22, 2011); see United States v. Dire, 680 F.3d 446, 469 (4th Cir. 2012). According to UNCLOS: Piracy consists of any of the following acts:
or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship . . . and directed:
ship . . . or against persons or property on board such ship . . . ; 12
property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State;
operation of a ship . . . with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship . . . ;
facilitating an act described in subparagraph (a) or (b). UNCLOS, art. 101, Dec. 10, 1982, 1833 U.N.T.S. 397, 436. By including “intentionally facilitating” a piratical act within its definition of piracy, article 101(c) puts to rest any worry that American notions of aider and abettor liability might fail to respect the international understanding of piracy. 3 One question remains: does international law require facilitative acts take place on the high seas? Explicit geographical limits—“on the high seas” and “outside the jurisdiction of any state”—govern piratical acts under article 101(a)(i) and (ii). Such language is absent, however, in article 101(c), strongly suggesting a facilitative act need not occur on the high seas so long as its predicate offense has. Cf. Dean v. United States, 556 U.S. 568, 573 (2009) (“[W]here Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). So far, so good; Charming Betsy poses no problems. 3 As neither party draws support for its position from article 101(b), we need not opine on its meaning here. 13 Ali endeavors nonetheless to impute a “high seas” requirement to article 101(c) by pointing to UNCLOS article 86, which states, “The provisions of this Part apply to all parts of the sea that are not included in the exclusive economic zone, in the territorial sea or in the internal waters of a State, or in the archipelagic waters of an archipelagic State.” 1833 U.N.T.S. at 432. Though, at first glance, the language at issue appears generally applicable, there are several problems with Ali’s theory that article 86 imposes a strict high seas requirement on all provisions in Part VII. For one thing, Ali’s reading would result in numerous redundancies throughout UNCLOS where, as in article 101(a)(i), the term “high seas” is already used, and interpretations resulting in textual surplusage are typically disfavored. Cf. Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities for a Great Or., 515 U.S. 687, 698 (1995). Similarly, many of the provisions to which article 86 applies explicitly concern conduct outside the high seas. See, e.g., UNCLOS, art. 92(1), 1833 U.N.T.S. at 433 (“A ship may not change its flag during a voyage or while in a port of call . . . .”); id. art. 100, 1833 U.N.T.S. at 436 (“All States shall cooperate to the fullest possible extent in the repression of piracy on the high seas or in any other place outside the jurisdiction of any State.”). Ali’s expansive interpretation of article 86 is simply not plausible. What does article 86 mean, then, if it imposes no high seas requirement on the other articles in Part VII of UNCLOS? After all, “the canon against surplusage merely favors that interpretation which avoids surplusage,” not the construction substituting one instance of superfluous language for another. Freeman v. Quicken Loans, Inc., 132 S. Ct. 2034, 2043 (2012). We believe it is best understood as definitional, explicating the term “high seas” for that portion of the treaty most directly discussing such issues. Under this interpretation, article 86 mirrors other prefatory provisions in UNCLOS. Part 14 II, for example, concerns “Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone” and so opens with article 2’s explanation of the legal status of a State’s territorial sea. 1833 U.N.T.S. at 400. And Part III, covering “Straits Used for International Navigation,” begins with article 34’s clarification of the legal status of straits used for international navigation. 1833 U.N.T.S. at 410. Drawing guidance from these provisions, article 86 makes the most sense as an introduction to Part VII, which is titled “High Seas,” and not as a limit on jurisdictional scope. Cf. FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U.S. 120, 133 (2000) (“It is a fundamental canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Thwarted by article 101’s text, Ali contends that even if facilitative acts count as piracy, a nation’s universal jurisdiction over piracy offenses is limited to high seas conduct. In support of this claim, Ali invokes UNCLOS article 105, which reads, On the high seas, or in any other place outside the jurisdiction of any State, every State may seize a pirate ship or aircraft, or a ship or aircraft taken by piracy and under the control of pirates and arrest the persons and seize the property on board. The courts of the State which carried out the seizure may decide upon the penalties to be imposed . . . . 1833 U.N.T.S. at 437. Ali understands article 105’s preface to govern the actual enforcement of antipiracy law—and, by extension, to restrict universal jurisdiction to the high seas— even if the definition of piracy is more expansive. In fact, Ali gets it backward. Rather than curtailing the categories of 15 persons who may be prosecuted as pirates, the provision’s reference to the high seas highlights the broad authority of nations to apprehend pirates even in international waters. His reading also proves too much, leaving nations incapable of prosecuting even those undisputed pirates they discover within their own borders—a far cry from “universal” jurisdiction. Article 105 is therefore no indication international law limits the liability of aiders and abettors to their conduct on the high seas. Ali’s next effort to exclude his conduct from the international definition of piracy eschews UNCLOS’s text in favor of its drafting history—or, rather, its drafting history’s drafting history. He points to UNCLOS’s origins in article 15 of the 1958 Geneva Convention on the High Seas, which closely parallels the later treaty’s article 101. See Geneva Convention on the High Seas, art. 15, Apr. 29, 1958, 13 U.S.T. 2312, 450 U.N.T.S. 82. Article 15 was based in large part on a model convention compiled at Harvard Law School by various legal scholars, see 2 ILC YEARBOOK 282 (1956), who postulated that “[t]he act of instigation or facilitation is not subjected to the common jurisdiction unless it takes place outside territorial jurisdiction.” Joseph W. Bingham et al., Codification of International Law: Part IV: Piracy, 26 AM. J. INT’L L. SUPP. 739, 822 (1932). Ali hopes this latter statement is dispositive. Effectively, Ali would have us ignore UNCLOS’s plain meaning in favor of eighty-year-old scholarship that may have influenced a treaty that includes language similar to UNCLOS article 101. This is a bridge too far. Legislative history is an imperfect enough guide when dealing with acts of Congress. See Conroy v. Aniskoff, 507 U.S. 511, 519 (1993) (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment) (“If one were to search for an interpretive technique that, on the whole, was more likely to 16 confuse than to clarify, one could hardly find a more promising candidate than legislative history.”). Ali’s inferential chain compounds the flaws—and that even assumes a single intent can be divined as easily from the myriad foreign governments that ratified the agreement as from a group of individual legislators. Even were it a more feasible exercise, weighing the relevance of scholarly work that indirectly inspired UNCLOS is not an avenue open to us. Basic principles of treaty interpretation—both domestic and international—direct courts to construe treaties based on their text before resorting to extraneous materials. See United States v. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U.S. 655, 663 (1992) (“In construing a treaty, as in construing a statute, we first look to its terms to determine its meaning.”); Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, art. 32, May 23, 1969, 8 I.L.M. 679, 692, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331, 340. Because international law permits prosecuting acts of aiding and abetting piracy committed while not on the high seas, the Charming Betsy canon is no constraint on the scope of Count Two. 2. Piracy and the Presumption Against Extraterritorial Effect Ali next attempts to achieve through the presumption against extraterritoriality what he cannot with Charming Betsy. Generally, the extraterritorial reach of an ancillary offense like aiding and abetting or conspiracy is coterminous with that of the underlying criminal statute. Yakou, 428 F.3d at 252. And when the underlying criminal statute’s extraterritorial reach is unquestionable, the presumption is rebutted with equal force for aiding and abetting. See United States v. Hill, 279 F.3d 731, 739 (9th Cir. 2002) (“[A]iding and abetting[] and conspiracy . . . have been deemed to confer extraterritorial jurisdiction to the same extent as the offenses that underlie them.”); see also Yunis, 924 F.2d at 1091 (analyzing underlying offenses under extraterritoriality canon 17 but conducting no separate analysis with respect to conspiracy conviction). Ali admits the piracy statute must have some extraterritorial reach—after all, its very terms cover conduct outside U.S. territory—but denies that the extraterritorial scope extends to any conduct that was not itself perpetrated on the high seas. We note, as an initial matter, that proving a defendant guilty of aiding and abetting does not ordinarily require the government to establish “participation in each substantive and jurisdictional element of the underlying offense.” United States v. Garrett, 720 F.2d 705, 713 n.4 (D.C. Cir. 1983). A defendant could, for example, aid and abet “travel[ing] in foreign commerce[] for the purpose of engaging in any illicit sexual conduct with another person,” 18 U.S.C. § 2423(b), without himself crossing any international border. Cf. Raper, 676 F.2d at 850. Ali’s argument appears to be more nuanced. Ali claims the government seeks to use aider and abettor liability to expand the extraterritorial scope of the piracy statute beyond conduct on the high seas. Because § 1651 expressly targets crimes committed on the high seas, he believes Congress intended its extraterritorial effect—and, by extension, that of the aiding and abetting statute—to extend to international waters and no further. And, he claims, our opinion in United States v. Yakou supports this proposition by deciding that a foreign national who had renounced his legal permanent resident status could not be prosecuted for aiding and abetting under a statute applicable to “‘[a]ny U.S. person, wherever located, and any foreign person located in the United States or otherwise subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.’” 428 F.3d at 243 n.1 (quoting 22 C.F.R. § 129.3(a)). But this language makes clear the intention to limit U.S. criminal jurisdiction to certain categories of persons—a restriction 18 employing broad aider and abettor liability would have frustrated. See 438 F.3d at 252. In other words, Yakou spoke to the sort of defendant Congress had in mind, while § 1651’s reference to the high seas, in contrast, describes a category of conduct. Thus, instead of thwarting some clearly expressed Congressional purpose, extending aider and abettor liability to those who facilitate such conduct furthers the goal of deterring piracy on the high seas—even when the facilitator stays close to shore. In fact, Yakou distinguished the offense at issue there from those crimes—like piracy—in which “the evil sought to be averted inherently relates to, and indeed requires, persons in certain categories.” Id. In keeping with that principle, § 1651’s high seas language refers to the very feature of piracy that makes it such a threat: that it exists outside the reach of any territorial authority, rendering it both notoriously difficult to police and inimical to international commerce. See Eugene Kontorovich, Implementing Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain: What Piracy Reveals About the Limits of the Alien Tort Statute, 80 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 111, 152–53 (2004). As UNCLOS § 101(c) recognizes, it is self-defeating to prosecute those pirates desperate enough to do the dirty work but immunize the planners, organizers, and negotiators who remain ashore. Nor does the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 133 S. Ct. 1659 (2013), change the equation. Reiterating that “[w]hen a statute provides for some extraterritorial application, the presumption against extraterritoriality operates to limit that provision to its terms,’” the Court rejected the notion that “because Congress surely intended the [Alien Tort Statute] to provide jurisdiction for actions against pirates, it necessarily anticipated the statute would apply to conduct occurring abroad.” Id. at 1667 19 (quoting Morrison, 130 S. Ct. at 2883). Ali contends that § 1651’s high seas requirement is similarly limiting, and that the presumption against extraterritoriality remains intact as to acts done elsewhere. Even assuming Ali’s analogy to Kiobel is valid, 4 he overlooks a crucial fact: § 1651’s high seas element is not the only evidence of the statute’s extraterritorial reach, for the statute references not only “the high seas” but also “the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations.” As explained already, the law of nations specifically contemplates, within its definition of piracy, facilitative acts undertaken from within a nation’s territory. See supra Subsection II.A.1. By defining piracy in terms of the law of nations, § 1651 incorporated this extraterritorial application of the international law of piracy and indicates Congress’s intent to subject extraterritorial acts like Ali’s to prosecution. Why then does § 1651 mention the high seas at all if “the law of nations,” which has its own high seas requirements, is filling in the statute’s content? Simply put, doing so fits the international definition of piracy—a concept that encompasses both crimes on the high seas and the acts that facilitate them—into the structure of U.S. criminal law. To be convicted as a principal under § 1651 alone, one must commit piratical acts on the high seas, just as UNCLOS article 101(a) 4 Kiobel and its predecessors stated that courts may not infer that all applications or provisions in a statute have extraterritorial effect just because some do. See, e.g., Morrison, 130 S. Ct. at 2883; Microsoft Corp. v. AT&T Corp., 550 U.S. 437, 455–56 (2007). These cases do not suggest, as Ali argues, that a statute’s application to a particular foreign region cannot rebut the presumption against extraterritoriality as to other unspecified places. 20 demands. But applying aider and abettor liability to the sorts of facilitative acts proscribed by UNCLOS article 101(c) requires using § 1651 and § 2 in tandem. That is not to say § 1651’s high seas requirement plays no role in prosecuting Ali for aiding and abetting piracy, for the government must prove someone committed piratical acts while on the high seas. See Raper, 676 F.2d at 849. That is an element the government must prove at trial, but not one it must show Ali perpetrated personally. 5 Of course, § 1651’s high seas language could also be read as Congress’s decision to narrow the scope of the international definition of piracy to encompass only those actions committed on the high seas. But Ali’s preferred interpretation has some problems. Most damningly, to understand § 1651 as a circumscription of the law of nations would itself run afoul of Charming Betsy, requiring a construction in conflict with international law. Ultimately, we think it most prudent to read the statute the way it tells us to. It is titled “[p]iracy under law of nations,” after all. Like the Charming Betsy canon, the presumption against extraterritorial effect does not constrain trying Ali for aiding and abetting piracy. While the offense he aided and abetted must have involved acts of piracy committed on the high seas, his own criminal liability is not contingent on his having facilitated these acts while in international waters himself.
5 The “high seas” reference may also be Congress’s attempt to expressly rebut the presumption against extraterritoriality as to piracy. See Argentine Republic v. Amerada Hess Shipping Corp., 488 U.S. 428, 440 (1989) (“When it desires to do so, Congress knows how to place the high seas within the jurisdictional reach of a statute.”). 21 Though the aiding and abetting statute reaches Ali’s conduct, his conspiracy charge is another matter. In many respects conspiracy and aiding and abetting are alike, which would suggest the government’s ability to charge Ali with one implies the ability to charge him with both. While conspiracy is a “separate and distinct” offense in the United States, Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640, 643 (1946), it is also a theory of liability like aiding and abetting; “[a]s long as a substantive offense was done in furtherance of the conspiracy, and was reasonably foreseeable as a necessary or natural consequence of the unlawful agreement, then a conspirator will be held vicariously liable for the offense committed by his or her co-conspirators.” United States v. Moore, 651 F.3d 30, 80 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (per curiam) (internal quotation marks omitted). Yet a crucial difference separates the two theories of liability. Because § 371, like § 2, fails to offer concrete evidence of its application abroad, we turn, pursuant to the Charming Betsy canon, to international law to help us resolve this ambiguity of meaning. Whereas UNCLOS, by including facilitative acts within article 101’s definition of piracy, endorses aider and abettor liability for pirates, the convention is silent on conspiratorial liability. International law provides for limited instances in which nations may prosecute the crimes of foreign nationals committed abroad, and, in invoking universal jurisdiction here, the government predicates its prosecution of Ali on one of those theories. And although neither side disputes the applicability of universal jurisdiction to piracy as defined by the law of nations, UNCLOS’s plain language does not include conspiracy to commit piracy. See, e.g., Ved P. Nanda, Maritime Piracy: How Can International Law and Policy Address This Growing Global Menace?, 39 DENV. J. INT’L L. & POL’Y 177, 22 181 (2011) (“It should be noted that the [UNCLOS] definition does not refer to either an attempt to commit an act of piracy or to conspiracy relating to such an act, but it does include voluntary participation or facilitation.”). The government offers us no reason to believe otherwise, and at any rate, we are mindful that “imposing liability on the basis of a violation of ‘international law’ or the ‘law of nations’ or the ‘law of war’ generally must be based on norms firmly grounded in international law.” Hamdan v. United States, 696 F.3d 1238, 1250 n.10 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (emphasis added). International law does not permit the government’s abortive use of universal jurisdiction to charge Ali with conspiracy. Thus, the Charming Betsy doctrine, which was no impediment to Ali’s aider and abettor liability, cautions against his prosecution for conspiracy. The government hopes nonetheless to salvage its argument through appeal to § 371’s text. Though courts construe statutes, when possible, to accord with international law, Congress has full license to enact laws that supersede it. See Yunis, 924 F.2d at 1091. The government suggests Congress intended to do precisely that in § 371, which provides that “[i]f two or more persons conspire . . . to commit any offense against the United States . . . and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy,” each is subject to criminal liability. Homing in on the phrase “any offense against the United States,” the government contends Congress intended the statute to apply to all federal criminal statutes, even when the result conflicts with international law. Yet, as we explained above, if we are to interpret § 371 as supplanting international law, we need stronger evidence than this. Indeed, the Supreme Court recently rejected the notion that similar language of general application successfully rebuts the presumption against extraterritorial effect. See Kiobel, 133 S. Ct. at 1665 (“Nor 23 does the fact that the text reaches ‘any civil action’ suggest application to torts committed abroad; it is well established that generic terms like ‘any’ or ‘every’ do not rebut the presumption against extraterritoriality.”). Under international law, prosecuting Ali for conspiracy to commit piracy would require the United States to have universal jurisdiction over his offense. And such jurisdiction would only exist if the underlying charge actually falls within UNCLOS’s definition of piracy. Because conspiracy, unlike aiding and abetting, is not part of that definition, and because § 371 falls short of expressly rejecting international law, Charming Betsy precludes Ali’s prosecution for conspiracy to commit piracy. The district court properly dismissed Count One.