The Court of Vice Admiralty at Sierra Leone and the Abolition of the West African Slave Trade

Abstract

Drawing on archival sources, this Note explores an early experiment in humanitarian intervention undertaken by the Court of Vice Admiralty at Sierra Leone through the suppression of the West African slave trade during the early decades of the nineteenth century. Part I discusses the social and geopolitical pressures that helped British abolitionists realize their hopes of creating a free colony in Africa. Part II demonstrates the manner in which Robert Thorpe, Chief Judge of the Court of Vice Admiralty at Sierra Leone, enforced Britain’s 1807 Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade against British and foreign traders alike. Part III argues that Thorpe’s court, in conjunction with aggressive interdictions by the British Navy and privateers, forced Europe’s great slaving powers to the negotiating table and secured their abandonment of the slave trade through the creation of multilateral institutions equipped to adjudicate captured slave ships. This Part also discusses the Le Louis case, which demonstrated the impact of Thorpe’s court on the legal regime governing free navigation. Part IV then analyzes the relevance of Thorpe’s experiment in humanitarian intervention to current interdiction efforts undertaken by the Proliferation Security Initiative. author. Yale Law School, J.D. expected 2006; University of Cambridge, M.Phil., Political Thought & Intellectual History; University College London, M.A., Legal & Political Theory. I conducted the archival research on which this Note is based while a research assistant to David Sharpe, Professor Emeritus at The George Washington Law School. I am deeply indebted to him for allowing me to publish it in the present Note, and am grateful to him for his unstinting support. I also wish to thank Edgar J. McManus, W. Michael Reisman, David Richardson, and James Q. Whitman for their valuable comments on early versions of this Note, and Tad Heuer for his editorial assistance. HELFMAN 3/2/2006 5:40:54 PM the court of vice admiralty at sierra leone