The Enemy of All Piracy and the Law of Nations

The pirate is the original enemy of humankind. As Cicero famously remarked, there arecertain enemies with whom one may negotiate and with whom, circumstances permitting, one mayestablish a truce. But there is also an enemy with whom treaties are in vain and war remainsincessant. This is the pirate, considered by ancient jurists considered to be "the enemy ofall."In this book, Daniel Heller-Roazen reconstructs the shifting place of the pirate in legaland political thought from the ancient to the medieval, modern, and contemporary periods presentingthe philosophical genealogy of a remarkable antagonist. Today, Heller-Roazen argues, the piratefurnishes the key to the contemporary paradigm of the universal foe. This is a legal and politicalperson of exception, neither criminal nor enemy, who inhabits an extra-territorial region. Againstsuch a foe, states may wage extraordinary battles, policing politics and justifying militarymeasures in the name of welfare and security. Heller-Roazen defines the piracy in the conjunction offour conditions: a region beyond territorial jurisdiction; agents who may not be identified with anestablished state; the collapse of the distinction between criminal and political categories; andthe transformation of the concept of war. The paradigm of piracy remains in force today. Whenever wehear of regions outside the rule of law in which acts of "indiscriminate aggression" havebeen committed "against humanity," we must begin to recognize that these are acts ofpiracy. Often considered part of the distant past, the enemy of all is closer to us today than wemay think. Indeed, he may never have been closer.