sea piracy

Classifiers Filled

Family

Thing Registry

Category

Activities and processes

Entry kind

thing

Plane

ACT

Domain

ACT.ACT

Other names and narrower kinds

Piracy in Scotland, Petrol Piracy, Piracy in India, piracy in Portugal, Piracy in the Persian Gulf, piracy off the coast of Somalia, piracy in the Caribbean, Ancient Mediterranean piracy, piracy in the 21st century, piracy in the Sulu and Celebes Seas, Baltic Slavic piracy, Piracy in the Strait of Malacca

What it is Filled

Robbery, hijacking or violence against ships and their crews at sea, with a history from ancient Mediterranean and Scottish piracy through the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean to modern piracy off the coast of Somalia, in the Gulf of Guinea and Southeast Asia, including fuel theft known as petrol piracy. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea defines piracy more narrowly, including illegal violence, detention or depredation for private ends by the crew or passengers of a private ship or aircraft against another ship or aircraft, or persons or property aboard it, on the high seas or outside any state's jurisdiction; the relevant piracy provisions also apply in exclusive economic zones. Universal jurisdiction applies to piracy under that framework, while comparable acts in territorial or internal waters generally fall under coastal-state jurisdiction as armed robbery against ships or other domestic offences. Responses include naval patrols, shipping industry measures and prosecution, described here at the level of public reference sources.

Why it exists Filled

Let an agent explain sea piracy as a crime and phenomenon, relay its legal definition, history and regional patterns from international law, maritime security and historical sources with attribution, describe counter-piracy responses at a general level, and decline any guidance on committing piracy or evading enforcement, routing those in danger to maritime rescue and reporting centres.

Distinguishing features Filled

• It involves crime at sea.
• Universal jurisdiction applies to piracy within the international legal framework, rather than maritime robbery generally.
• Its incidence varies across regional hotspots.
• It has historical and modern forms.

What robots and AI may and may not do Filled

Must not

• Assist in planning, financing or carrying out an attack on a ship.
• Help launder ransom money or trade in stolen cargo.
• Reveal the routes or positions of vulnerable ships to anyone not entitled to them.
• Glorify piracy against real crews and victims.

Only with a human decision

• Reporting an attack in progress or a crew in danger.

May

• Explain piracy in international law and its history from legal and historical sources.
• Relay official maritime security warnings to vessels.
• Report sightings of suspicious craft to the authorities designated for the area.

Moral aspects Filled

• Seafarers are held hostage and killed in pirate attacks.
• Poverty and lawless coasts drive piracy, which force alone does not solve.

Who is affected

• Seafarers and their families
• Coastal communities
• Shipping operators

Owners Filled

Steward

Nobody lawfully; navies and coastal states answer for suppressing it under international law.

Master systems

• Maritime incident reporting databases

Links to other meta-models Filled

parent

• Q1933595 - registry parent class

related

• hijacking - in registry terms
• United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea - article 101
• naval operation - such as EU NAVFOR Atalanta
• privateering - state-licensed raiding

Sources Filled

1. Wikidata item Q45393: sea piracy - identity and sense of the item
2. Wikipedia: Piracy - general description of the item

Open questions

• Should piracy off Somalia and Gulf of Guinea piracy be separate primary entries?
• How should international law and maritime security sources be linked?
• The registry entry has merged aliases naming regional histories and petrol piracy; should they be split off?

Machine files

Provenance

thing registry research (pass 2) · unreviewed

Built from: models/things/publications/thing-q45393/spec.json