‘Even in the remotest corners of the world’: globalized piracy and international law, 1500–1900
Year: 2010
Type: article
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.
Source: Journal of Global History
Author: Michael Kempe
Institution: University of Konstanz
Language: English
Subfield: Transportation
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2115123713