Military Rescue Operation for the Hostages Taken by Somali Pirates: Was the Korean Navy's "Daybreak in the Gulf of Aden" Legitimate?
Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: On January 21, 2011, the Korean navy commandos rescued the twenty-one crewmen abducted and detained by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean.The pirates captured alive were brought to Korea for trial and the prosecutor' s office of Pusan sentenced the leader of the Somali pirate group to life-imprisonment.The other four pirates received imprisonment terms from 12 to 15 years.Regardless of these domestic legal punishments, this rescue operation has raised a few critical international legal questions.The primary objective of this paper is to answer these questions.This research analyzes the international legal characteristics of the Korean Navy' s rescue operation.Then, a few case-studies of military rescue operation are carried out in order to justify the Korean Navy' s rescue operation.The Korean Navy' s rescue operation may be regarded as an act of forcible self-help and realization of existing international legal right.
Author: Eric Yong Joong Lee
Institutions: Dongguk University, YIJUN Institute of International Law
Language: English
Subfield: Transportation
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4229766327