Somali piracy is on the rise and adapting to naval deterrence tactics, and European lawyers are representing pirates and arguing for their rights. . .Agreed--as 16th-century jurist Alberico Gentili said: "Pirates are common enemies, and they are attacked with impunity by all, because they are without the pale of the law. They are scorners of the law of nations; hence they find no protection in that law."
The Paris-based legal-aid group Lawyers of the World, meanwhile, is representing more than 40 piracy detainees handed over to Kenya for prosecution, insisting that their rights are being violated by deficiencies in Kenyan law. Fighting piracy is turning into a series of bureaucratic opportunities for attorneys and alliance staffs. It is also providing the pretext for Russia and Iran to establish a maritime presence in this crucial region. Yet piracy continues to flourish undaunted. Something is wrong with this picture.
(via Maggie's Farm)
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The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed
(and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with
an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
- H.L. Mencken -
Of course, if you happen to create a few real ones along the way, that's no big deal....
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