(

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

for 'an enemy of mankind') is a legal

term of art Jargon, or technical language, is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The conte ...

that originates in

admiralty law Maritime law or admiralty law is a body of law that governs nautical issues and private maritime disputes. Admiralty law consists of both domestic law on maritime activities, and conflict of laws, private international law governing the relations ...

. Before the adoption of

public international law International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of Rule of law, rules, norms, Customary law, legal customs and standards that State (polity), states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generall ...

, pirates and slavers were generally held to be beyond legal protection and so could be dealt with by any nation, even one that had not been directly attacked. A comparison can be made between this concept and the

common law Common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law primarily developed through judicial decisions rather than statutes. Although common law may incorporate certain statutes, it is largely based on prece ...

"writ of outlawry", which declared a person outside the king's law, a literal out-law, subject to violence and execution by anyone. The

ancient Roman In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

civil law concept of proscription, and the status of conveyed by proscription may also be similar.

Background

Perhaps the oldest of the laws of the sea is the prohibition of

piracy Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are call ...

, as the peril of being set upon by pirates, who are not motivated by national

allegiance An allegiance is a duty of fidelity said to be owed, or freely committed, by the people, subjects or citizens to their state or sovereign. Etymology The word ''allegiance'' comes from Middle English ' (see Medieval Latin ', "a liegance"). The ...

, is shared by the vessels and mariners of all nations, and thus represents a crime upon all nations. Since

classical antiquity Classical antiquity, also known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply antiquity, is the period of cultural History of Europe, European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD comprising the inter ...

, pirates have been held to be individuals waging private warfare, a private campaign of

sack A sack usually refers to a rectangular-shaped bag. Sack may also refer to: Bags * Flour sack * Gunny sack * Hacky sack, sport * Money sack * Paper sack * Sleeping bag * Stuff sack * Knapsack Other uses * Bed, a slang term * Sack (band), ...

and pillage, against not only their victims, but against all nations, and thus, those engaging in piracy hold the particular status of being regarded as , the enemy of humanity. Since piracy anywhere is a peril to every mariner and ship everywhere, it is held to be the universal right and the universal duty of all nations, regardless of whether their ships have been beset by the particular band of pirates in question, to capture, try by a regularly constituted

court-martial A court-martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the arme ...

admiralty court Admiralty courts, also known as maritime courts, are courts exercising jurisdiction over all admiralty law, maritime contracts, torts, injuries, and offenses. United Kingdom England and Wales Scotland The Scottish court's earliest records, ...

(in extreme circumstances, by means of a drumhead court-martial convened by the officers of the capturing ship), and, if found guilty, to

execute Execution, in capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), s ...

the pirate via means of

hanging Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...

from the yard-arm of the capturing ship, an authoritative custom of the sea. Although summary battlefield punishment was conducted by certain nations at certain times with regard to pirates, it was regarded as irregular (but lawful if the attenuation of due process was dictated by urgent military necessity), as individuals captured with pirates could potentially have a defense to charges of piracy, such as

coercion Coercion involves compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner through the use of threats, including threats to use force against that party. It involves a set of forceful actions which violate the free will of an individual in order to i ...

. For instance, in early 1831, the 250-strong crew captured off Ascension was brought to Ascension and summarily hanged, as they were acting in a rebellious manner and threatening to overthrow the 30-man crew of , a British sloop-of-war, which took them captive. As the summary punishment, in this case, was due to military necessity, there was clear evidence of the offense, and it was done proximate in time and location to the battlefield, it can be classified as merely irregular, and not a violation of the custom of the sea.

Theorized extended usages of the term

The land and airborne analogues of pirates, bandits and hijackers are not subject to universal jurisdiction in the same way as piracy; this is despite arguments that they should be. Instead these crimes, along with terrorism, torture, crimes against internationally protected persons and the financing of terrorism are subject to the '' aut dedere aut judicare'' principle (meaning prosecute or extradite). In the current global climate of international terrorism some commentators have called for terrorists of all sorts to be treated ''hostis humani generis''. Other commentators, such as John Yoo, have called for the extension of this hypothetical connection of ''hostis humani generis'' from pirates to hijackers to terrorists all the way to that of " unlawful enemy combatants". Unlawful enemy combatants, or persons captured in war who do not fight on behalf of a recognized sovereign state, have become an increasingly common phenomenon in contemporary wars, such as the

War in Afghanistan War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to: *Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC), the conquest of Afghanistan by the Macedonian Empire * Muslim conquests of Afghanistan, a series of campaigns in ...

Iraq War The Iraq War (), also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a prolonged conflict in Iraq lasting from 2003 to 2011. It began with 2003 invasion of Iraq, the invasion by a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition, which ...

, Chechen Wars and Syrian Civil War.

Actual extended usages of the term

The only actual extension of blessed by courts of law has been its extension to torturers. This has been done by decisions of U.S. and international courts; specifically, in a case tried in the United States in 1980, '' Filártiga v. Peña-Irala'', 630 F.2d 876, the United States 2nd Circuit Court ruled that it could exercise jurisdiction over agents of the

Alfredo Stroessner Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda (; 3 November 1912 – 16 August 2006) was a Paraguayan politician, army general and Military dictatorship, military dictator who ruled as the 42nd president of Paraguay from 15 August 1954 until his overthrow in 19 ...

military dictatorship A military dictatorship, or a military regime, is a type of dictatorship in which Power (social and political), power is held by one or more military officers. Military dictatorships are led by either a single military dictator, known as a Polit ...

of Paraguay (in their individual capacity) who were found to have committed the crime of torture against a Paraguayan citizen, using its jurisdiction under the ''Offenses Clause'' of the

Constitution of the United States The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally includi ...

, the Alien Tort Claims Act, and

customary international law Customary international law consists of international legal obligations arising from established or usual international practices, which are less formal customary expectations of behavior often unwritten as opposed to formal written treaties or c ...

. In deciding this, the court famously stated that "Indeed, for purposes of civil liability, the torturer has become like the pirate and slave trader before him: , an enemy of all mankind." This usage of the term has been reinforced by the ruling of the

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes in the Yugoslav Wars, war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to tr ...

in the conviction of a torturer in ''Prosecutor v. Furundžija''. In the Eichmann trial of 1961, the Jerusalem District Court did not explicitly deem Adolf Eichmann a . The prosecution, however, invoked the standard, ultimately cited in the verdict by reference to piracy.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hostis Humani Generis Universal jurisdiction Law of the sea Piracy law Anti-piracy International criminal law Latin legal terminology

Background

Theorized extended usages of the term

Actual extended usages of the term

See also

References