International Law On Piracy

http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/098950.php

TO UNDERSTAND THE POTENTIAL OF DEFINING TERRORISM as a species of piracy, consider the words of the 16th-century jurist Alberico Gentili's De jure belli: "Pirates are common enemies, and they are attacked with impunity by all, because they are without the pale of the law. They are scorners of the law of nations; hence they find no protection in that law." Gentili, and many people who came after him, recognized piracy as a threat, not merely to the state but to the idea of statehood itself. All states were equally obligated to stamp out this menace, whether or not they had been a victim of piracy. This was codified explicitly in the 1856 Declaration of Paris, and it has been reiterated as a guiding principle of piracy law ever since.

It has long been a principle of international law that pirates are the "enemies of all humanity", are "outside the protection of the law" and may be killed, with-or-without "due process of law", by any nation's agents or, in the act of piracy, by any person attacked by them. This is true even if those pirates are sanctioned or protected by some State.

The Law-Of-War does not protect pirates OR terrorists caught in the act of their crimes.Any disposition of pirates and terrorist, less than killing them, is an "act of grace" and NOT a right. This includes perpetual confinement (Under any conditions) and even "water boarding" to obtain such information as might allow the further suppression of piracy and terrorism.

To paraphrase: Those who do not study and learn from history will be condemned to repeat it. The lesson not learned, by the USA and the West, from the history of the 1800s "Barbary Pirates" is that paying ransoms to and compromising with pirates increases their criminal activity levels; AND, the only way to effective deal with them is to kill pirates, destroy their ships AND severely punish their bases-of-operations even if within the alleged jurisdiction of some semi-government as Somalia.