What is the difference between privateering and piracy

Although they usually cruised independently, privateers sometimes cooperated with each other, as well as the regular navy. They obviously tried to avoid encounters with opposing warships. After the French Revolution, French privateers became a serious menace to British shipping in the Caribbean and the western Atlantic and the Royal Navy started to purchase Bermuda sloops to combat the French privateers.

Although generally supporting the rebels during the American War of Independence, Bermudian privateers turned aggressively on American shipping after losing most of the continental trade and after Bermudians were excluded from fishing the Grand Banks. Still Bermudians continued trading with the rebellious colonies and helped them win their independence. Bermudian privateering declined in the s in part because the Royal Navy established a larger presence in Bermuda, reducing the reliance on privateers, but also due to American legal claims for damages against Bermudian privateers.

A map of Central America and the Caribbean at the time when Bermudian privateers were most active. Rather, member States must incorporate provisions into domestic law before they can prosecute acts of piracy. Yet, few States have taken this essential step.

Another international instrument, that governs piracy and provides a jurisdictional basis for nations to prosecute such acts domestically, is the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation Rome, 10 March Drafted in response to the Achille Lauro incident, the SUA Convention was enacted, at least in part, to ensure that politically motivated attacks on ships could be prosecuted as acts of piracy.

Although the SUA Convention does appear to broadly prohibit offenses that are more consistent with modern-day piracy, the Convention is flawed for several reasons, see Dutton, pp. In municipal law, various definitions of the term piracy are in use. It has been extended to cover crimes other than those defined above, such as slave trading. A sovereign State has the power to declare offenses to be piracy that are not so regarded by international law.

These municipal laws can have binding force only in the jurisdiction creating them. As new types of piracy resurge nowadays, the international community has to decide to act and bring pirates to justice. Piracy is a serious crime of international concern that is only increasing in frequency and severity. Although the international community may be thwarting some pirate attacks, what it is not doing now is sending pirates a message that piracy will not be tolerated.

Recent developments show that first steps have been taken. In its Resolution , the UN Security Council is calling on member states to criminalize piracy under their domestic laws and urging the Secretary-General to consider an International Tribunal for prosecuting piracy. Others suggest that pirates can be brought to justice using the already extant International Criminal Court by way of an optional protocol to include piracy within the Court's jurisdiction.

Rens Steenhard on 6 December Historical Perspective on Piracy Piracy is of ancient origin. Piracy in International Law As mentioned above, piracy should be distinguished from privateering. Bibliography manually. Boon, K. Heller-Roazen, D. Kempe, M. Kraska, J.

Lehr, P. Marley, D. Murphy, M. Even for the Roman Empire, piracy was a real scourge. Usually, pirates operated illegally. After leaving the merchant ship where they worked, they dedicated themself to attacking and sinking vessels for personal economic advantage. The pirates men and women were cruel marauders who acted without rules or any legitimate, national support, for the sole purpose of enriching themselves through violence and intimidation.

The privateer was a private citizen or ship who, provided by a state government with specific formal authorization, the commission , attacked foreign vessels, taking them as prizes, in exchange for a part of the profits achieved. Governments authorized the privateer to assault and rob the merchant ships of the enemy nation ; while behaving like a pirate, the privateer carried out a legitimate and non-criminal activity with official permission to kill people, but only in war.

Thus the fundamental difference between pirates and privateers was the commission. A privateer would never have attacked ships or ports belonging to another nation besides the one on his commission.

As we have seen, pirates could occasionally find themselves in the service of a state engaged in conflicts. However, sea battles were not waged by only employing official fleets. Since the 12thth century, belligerent nations commissioned private ships to participate in war actions against enemy vessels.

The term corsairs can refer to two types of pirates : the Barbary or Ottoman Corsairs or to the French corsairs. The former were Ottoman or Berber pirates and privateers. They used to terrorized and plunder all the Mediterranean but did not attack Muslim ships and often sold prisoners into slavery.

The latter were privateers that conduct raids on shipping of a nation at war with France, on behalf of the French crown.