The extraordinary growth in piracy off the coast of Somalia in recent months has led to a multipronged international response. Several nations have sent naval assets to patrol the Gulf of Aden in an effort to protect international commercial shipping. The United Nations Security Council has, under its Chapter VII powers to address threats to international peace and security, passed a series of resolutions that give these forces unprecedented legal authority to pursue pirates. While the traditional definition of piracy under international law restricts military responses by outside powers to those carried out on the high seas, the 2008 Security Council resolutions authorize the use of military force within sovereign Somali waters and territory. Despite this authorization of expanded powers to interdict and detain pirates at sea, states have expressed frustration at the limited available options for prosecuting captured pirates. Thus Britain has entered into an agreement with Kenya to permit sea robbers captured by the Royal Navy to be tried in Kenyan courts. All these developments are innovative legal responses to a modern epidemic of the oldest recognized international crime.
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