Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

To an 18th-century seafarer, "Jamaica discipline" represented the temptation to go a-pirating. Far from being the chaos and anarchy represented in the grade B movies of our youth, piracy was a business, and the pirate was as conscious of his obligations and rights as any Mafia capo. For the captains and sailors who crossed the line of legality to go "on the account," 2 the articles of Jamaica discipline - while differing from crew to crew - represented a social contract, indeed a treaty in microcosm, which enabled the business of piracy to thrive.

Today, two centuries later, "Jamaica discipline," when used in a maritime context, could suggest another meaning - the enforcement of articles of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was signed on December 10th of that year in Montego Bay, Jamaica.' Although not yet in force, most provisions of the treaty are felt to embody customary international law,4 to regulate uses of the ocean, and - of particular importance for the present discussion - to codify a universal response to the crime of piracy.5 Yet, ironically, these piracy articles perpetuate defects in response to maritime violence which, no less than the piracy compacts of old, could enable that "business" to thrive.

The purpose of this paper is to expose these problems and to suggest ways in which the defects could be rectified. A general discussion of piracy and maritime terrorism will be followed by a background of international responses to maritime violence, a discussion of the 1982 Convention and its flaws, and finally by an evaluation of useful international responses.

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