This book is a socio-legal study of counter-piracy. It takes as its case the law enforcement efforts after 2008 to suppress piracy off the coast of Somalia.
Through ethnographic fieldwork, the book invites the reader onto a Danish warship patrolling the western Indian Ocean for piracy incidents and into the courtroom in Seychelles, where more than 150 suspects were prosecuted. The aim is to understand how counter-piracy worked in practice. The book uses assemblage theory to approach law as a social process and places emphasis on studying empirical enforcement practices over analysing legal provisions. This supplements existing scholarship on the legal aspects of counter-piracy. Scholarship has mainly examined applicable law governing counter-piracy. This book steps into the field to examine applied law. Its methodology renders visible areas of legal ambiguity and identifies practices that suggest impunity and question legal certainty. It thus contributes with new policy-relevant knowledge for international security governance. The relevance is one of urgency. Counter-piracy off Somalia has served as a governance paradigm, which is replicated in other maritime domains. Consideration of the implications for policy is therefore needed.
The book will be of interest to policy-makers, security practitioners and scholars who share a methodological commitment to practice.
By:
Jessica Larsen (Danish Institute for International Studies Denmark.)
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 250g
ISBN: 9781032226774
ISBN 10: 1032226773
Pages: 120
Publication Date: 08 October 2024
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
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
Jessica Larsen is a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen, Denmark.
