The Definition of Piracy Under Article 101 of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea – An Attempted Legal Analysis

Abstract

The definition of piracy introduced in Article 101 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea signed on 10 December 1982 in Montego Bay (known as the Jamaica Convention) is an almost direct quotation of Article 15 of the 1958 Territorial Sea Convention (known as the Geneva Convention). In their work on piracy regulations for the Geneva Convention, the International Law Commission relied heavily on the results of a private project developed in 1932 under the supervision of Professor Joseph Bingham from the Harvard University, known as the Harvard Draft Convention on Piracy (hereinafter the Harvard Draft).1 The current definition of piracy introduced in Article 101 of the Jamaica Convention is: