Alfred P. Rubin

The law of piracy

Piracy on the high seas is not a thing of the past. Although it is not much in the public eye, it is still, as it always has been, a significant threat to international trade. But should there be an international piracy law regime? In this study, now in its second edition, Professor Rubin thinks not. The phenomenon has many diverse roots in contemporary affairs, and the dangerous blurring of important legal distinctions (eg. criminal and political) is all too likely. This is an important book for students and policymakers in the growing area of the law of the sea.

International Law in Historical Perspective.

Preface. Introduction. 1. List of Cases (Jurisprudence). 2. List of Arbitrations. 3. Index of Names. 4. Index of Geographical Names. 5. Index of Ships. 6. Index of Subjects. 7. List of Treaties. Appendix: Jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice.

Current legal approaches to international terrorism

Abstract Most difficulties in achieving international cooperation to suppress “terrorism” reflect failures to take account of the way authority is distributed in the international legal order. Attempts to narrow or abolish the “political offense,” exception to extradition treaties, are seen as either futile or self‐defeating for both political and legal reasons. Five other approaches are analyzed and promise is seen in three of them. The fourth, resting on the extension of national jurisdiction in disregard of the limits inherent in the international legal order, is seen as the one most attractive to the United States, Germany, and Iran, but the one most likely to lead to unmanageable political complications. The fifth, relating to an “international criminal court,” is seen as most attractive to lawyers who would like to rule the world, but is inconsistent with both law and reality. A plea is made to statesmen and lawyers to examine the other three more closely.

The Use of Piracy in Malayan Waters

The concept of “piracy” meaning acts of depredation on the high seas not licensed by a political power with which normal intercourse was at least from time to time maintained is to be found in ancient writings known to Medieval and Renaissance Europe.1 It is not clear that all, or, indeed, any such acts were considered violations of law in the ancient world,2 although, of course, punitive or suppressive expeditions were sent against freebooters from time to time.

Terrorism and piracy: A legal view

Abstract Terrorist attacks on persons or property on the high seas or in the newly designated “exclusive economic zones” bear analogy closer to the traditional international law of “piracy” than most observers suspect. In traditional practice “private ends” in the usual sense was not an essential element of the offense; the label and its legal results were attached to unrecognized belligerents too. The latest codifications of the international law relating to piracy, principally those deriving from the 1958 Geneva Convention on the High Seas, are patently defective. A new formulation is proposed, with a commentary that, among other things, points out how international criminal law and universal jurisdiction can be coordinated with the generally accepted international law of armed conflict to clarify what is currently a chaotic legal situation.