Piracy

The BBC has a teaser report for their broadcast on piracy, and they bring up an interesting point I hadn't realized.

A piracy attack is an attack against a vessel that happens in international waters.

However, attacks that happen inside territorial waters, which are normally 12 nautical miles from the coast, are deemed as acts of robbery.

The laws that govern this distinction also determine the type of response that can be initiated.

For example, if a naval or coastguard vessel is a witness to an attack by pirates who manage to get into territorial waters, they are often forced to break off the right of "hot pursuit", as they do not have the permission of the relevant sovereign government to be in those waters.

As Mr Herbert-Burns of Lloyd's Intelligence Unit recalls, that is exactly what happened in the case of the Danica White.

"Two days after the attack, a United States naval vessel tried to intercede and fired shots across her bow," he says.

"The Danica White then managed to get inside Somali territorial waters and the United States naval ship had to break off pursuit for that reason.

In the special case of Somalia, this rule ought to be waived, since there is no sovereign government there.