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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 9:40 pm
Time: 9:40 pm
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1 results foundAuthor: Kontorovich, Eugene Title: Equipment Articles for the Prosecution of Maritime Piracy Summary: This paper will discuss how the adoption into treaty or municipal law of equipment articles could facilitate the prosecution of piracy. Equipment articles are rules that create a judicial presumption of guilt on piracy charges for the crews of civilian vessels possessing certain specified equipment within a certain defined area of the high seas plagued by pirate attacks. For example, equipment articles could create a presumption of pircay for people found on a vessel less than a certain length, with engines of a certain horsepower, equipped with grappling hooks, boarding ladders, armed with RPGs and/or heavy machine guns, and/or far out at sea with obviously inadequate stores of food and water (which could suggest the skiff operates from a mothership). The presence of all or some of these things would only be relevant to a finding of piracy for vessels within a predefined exclusion zone in the Gulf of Aden or Indian Ocean - not for the whole world. Such laws were crucial to the prosecution and suppression of the transatlantic slave trade in the 19th century, perhaps the greatest example of international legal cooperation before World War I. Equipment articles could help make the current naval cooperation in the suppression of piracy translate to an end of legal impunity. The promulgation of equipment articles could bolster the other principal legal anti-piracy policies under discussion. Such rules could be used in trials in national courts, regional tribunals, or specially created international courts. By lowering the cost of prosecution, equipment articles would encourage a broader range of countries, from India to the U.S., to prosecute pirates. This could reduce the human rights concerns surrounding such trials. A major advantage of the equipment articles is that they are a relatively low-cost and quick solution, compared to more long-term fixes like creating new international tribunals or stabilizing Somalia. After the idea was first mentioned in a briefing paper from the One Earth Future Foundation, United States Department officials have already expressed some interest. Part I of this discussion paper describes the use of equipment articles by numerous countries in the 19th century to bring slave traders to justice. Part II discusses modern treaties and municipal laws that take a similar approach to hish seas crimes by using vessel configuration or cargo as a proxy for hard-to prove criminal intent. Part III briefly considers the manner in which equipment articles can be promulgated, such as national legislation, treaty, or Security Council resolution, and concerns about establishing a criminal intent. Details: Broomfield, CO: One Earth Future Foundation, 2010. 10p. Source: Dicussion Paper: Internet Resource: Accessed February 14, 2012 at http://www.oneearthfuture.org/images/imagefiles/EQUIPMENT%20ARTICLES%20FOR%20THE%20PROSECUTION%20OF%20MARITIME%20PIRACY.pdf Year: 2010 Country: International URL: http://www.oneearthfuture.org/images/imagefiles/EQUIPMENT%20ARTICLES%20FOR%20THE%20PROSECUTION%20OF%20MARITIME%20PIRACY.pdf Shelf Number: 124143 Keywords: International CooperationInternational Law Enforcement CooperationMaritime SecurityPiracyProsection |