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‘Even in the remotest corners of the world’: globalized piracy and international law, 1500–1900*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2010

Michael Kempe
Michael Kempe
Affiliation:
Center of Excellence ‘Cultural Foundations of Integration’ and Department of History and Sociology, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstrasse 10, Box 213, D-78457 Konstanz, Germany E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

As a phenomenon accompanying European expansion, piracy and privateering spread globally, beginning in the sixteenth century. These activities, and their handling within transnational relations, shed light on several issues of modern international law, then under formation. They reflect different basic problems that both challenged and structured central aspects of legal relations on an international level: the transformation of ocean spaces into areas of colliding legal strategies, the use of privateers (‘legalized’ pirates) as a tool for extraterritorial expansion, the involvement of non-state players in international legal relations, the fragmentation of maritime sovereignty, and the application of international law to criminalize political resistance as piracy. That said, the international management of piracy shows that international law had the potential to resist its abuse as a mere instrument of politics and special interests. By focusing on piracy and privateering in early modern times, this article suggests a tension within modern international law, between its instrumentalization by particular interests and its status as an independent normative authority to correct or regulate such interests.

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Articles
Information
Journal of Global History , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , November 2010 , pp. 353 - 372
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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21 Rubin, Law.

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55 [Alexandre Exquemelin], Bucaniers of America, London: William Crooke, 1684–85, pp. 33–9. On cooperation between pirates and the native Indian population, see also Ignacio J. Gallup-Diaz, The door of the seas and the key to the universe: Indian politics and imperial rivalry in the Darién, 1640–1750, New York: Columbia University Press, 2005, pp. 53–74.

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58 ‘Commissions pour des Armements particuliers ou Lettres de Represailles des Princes et Estats Ennemis desdits Seigneurs Estats Generaux, et moins les troubler ny endommager d’aucune sorte, en vertu de telles Commissions ou Lettres de Represailles, ny mesme aller en course avec elles, sous peine d’estre pour-suivis et chastiez comme pirates.’ Art. 2, NA Den Haag, Staten General, Inv. Nr. 12587.186, http://www.ieg-mainz.de/likecms/likecms.php?site=transliteration.htm&dir=&ieg2sess=c8t5di1babfl4323d8l12kqqb5&treaty=234 (consulted 18 August 2010).

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69 See Alain Wijffels, ‘Alberico Gentili e i pirate’, in Alain Wijffels, ed., Alberico Gentili Consiliatore: atti del convegno quinta giornata gentiliana 19 settembre 1992, Milan: Giuffrè, 1999, pp. 85–131.

70 See Cornelius van Bynkershoek, Quaestionum juris publici libri duo (1737), vol. 1: The photographic reproduction of the edition of 1737, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930, p. 124.

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75 Georg Friedrich von Martens, Essai concernant les armateurs: les prises et surtout les reprises: d’apres les loix, les traités et les usages de puissances maritimes de l’Europe, Göttingen, 1795; idem, Versuch über Caper: feindliche Nehmungen und insonderheit Wiedernehmungen; nach den Gesetzen, Verträgen und Gebräuchen der Europäischen Seemächte, Göttingen, 1795.

76 Georg Friedrich von Martens, An essay on privateers, captures, and particularly on recaptures, according to the laws, treaties, and usages of the maritime powers of Europe, to which is subjoined a discourse, in which the rights and duties of neutral powers are briefly stated, London, 1801.

77 See the document files of this trial in two boxes in The National Archives, London, High Court of Admiralty (=HCA) 32/834.

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79 See Stark, Francis R., The abolition of privateering and the declaration of Paris, New York: Columbia University Press, 1897Google Scholar; Francis Piggott, The declaration of Paris 1856: a study – documented, London: University of London Press, 1919; H. W. Malkin, ‘The inner history of the declaration of Paris’, British Year Book of International Law, 8, 1927, pp. 1–44; Olive Anderson, ‘Some further light on the inner history of the Declaration of Paris’, Law Quarterly Review, 76, 1960, pp. 379–85.

80 See Piggott, Declaration, pp. 154–69.

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84 On the following, see above all Charles E. Davies, The blood-red Arab flag: an investigation into Qasimi piracy 1797–1820, Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1997.

85 ‘General treaty between the East India Company (Great Britain) and the friendly Arabs (trucial sheikhdoms of Oman and Bahrein), signed at Ras al Khaimah, 8 January 1820’, in Clive Parry, ed., The consolidated treaty series, vol. 70: 1819–1820, Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana Publications, 1969, pp. 463–8.

86 ‘There shall be a cessation of plunder and piracy, by land and sea, on the part of the Arabs, who are parties to the contract, for ever’ (ibid., p. 464, art. 1).

87 Ibid., art. 2.

88 Ibid., p. 465, art. 7.

89 Leoline Jenkins, ‘Charge given to an Admiralty session held at the Old Bailey’, c. 1669–74, in William Wynne, The life of Sir Leoline Jenkins, judge of the High-Court of Admiralty, 2 vols, London 1724, vol. 1, pp. xc–xci.

90 Nicholas Tarling, Piracy and politics in the Malay world: a study of British imperialism in nineteenth-century South-East Asia, new edition Nendeln: Kraus, 1978; Alfred P. Rubin, Piracy, paramountcy and protectorates, Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya, 1974.

91 Robert Ibbetson to the Chief Secretary, Fort William, Singapore, 25 April 1832, in The Burney papers, vol. 3, part 1 (March 1827 to June 1833), Bangkok, 1912; new edition Westmead, 1971, p. 309. See also the letters of Edward Owen in BL, IOR, IOR/F/1331/52585, 52586, and 52588.