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An Empirical Examination Of Universal Jurisdiction For Piracy, Eugene Kontorovich, Steven Art
An Empirical Examination Of Universal Jurisdiction For Piracy, Eugene Kontorovich, Steven Art
Faculty Working Papers
This Essay presents the first systematic empirical study of the incidence of universal jurisdiction prosecutions over an international crime. Using data on the number of piracies committed in a twelve year period (1998-2009) obtained from international agencies and maritime industry groups, we determine the percentage of acts of piracy where nations prosecuted under universal jurisdiction we determine the percentage of these cases where nations exercised UJ. Studies of the worldwide use of UJ over other crimes simply count how often UJ has been exercised, but do not attempt to determine the rate of prosecution.
We find that of all clearly …