New England Law Review on Mar 30, 2017
The MV Faina, a 530-foot Ukrainian freighter, left port near the Black Sea in late August 2008, carrying thirty-three T-72 Soviet-designed battle tanks, six anti-aircraft guns, one hundred and fifty grenade launchers, and piles of ammunition. On September 25, 2008 as the ship approached Mombasa, Kenya, three small speedboats converged on and boarded the vessel. The crew broadcasted an S.O.S., but the pirates captured the vessel and its twenty-one crewmembers before help could arrive. Pirates released the vessel five months after capture in exchange for a $3.2 million ransom payment parachuted onto the ship. The crew had been locked in a small, single room and let out only once or twice a week. Pirates have been causing trouble to civilized society ever since man first went out to the sea in ships. The challenge posed by twenty-first century Somali piracy is merely the latest reincarnation of one of the world’s oldest crimes. In the age of international peace and security, and multinational interdependence, States must work together in order to suppress a reinvigorated enemy of all mankind.