A Study On The Legitimacy Of Pirates Ransom Payment

Piracy is hardly a new problem. In recent years, with intensive outbreaks of pirate attacking merchant ship and taking the crew and cargos hostages for ransom, pirate, the ancient and traditional profession, has once again come into sight of people, becoming a terrifying threat to life and property that is occurring somewhere in the world each day.It is inevitable that these piratical attacks would eventually lead to contested insurance claims for the losses resulting from piracy. As a matter of fact, whichever parties pay the ransom at first, the liability to cover the loss eventually falls on the insurer’s shoulder. As we all know that the basic principle in insurance law is that the subject of matter must be lawful therefore the insured ransom damage is only recoverable on the basis that the payment of ransom is legally accepted. Thus there’s a fundamental premise for the insurer to pay off pirates loss, that is the payment is legitimate or at least not subject to legal prosecution. Therefore the study of legality of the pirate ransom payment becomes a technical problem needs to be settled down at the very beginning.This paper is aimed to figure out the legality of ransom payment in our country through the analysis of the cause of the pirates and the legal definition of piracy ransom, as well as studying the relevant legal provisions, relevant cases and the executive orders in the legal aspect of UK and the United States,This paper mainly consists of three parts.The first part mainly introduces the piracy and its international legislation, as well as the legal nature of pirate ransom.Since the legality of ransom payment is governed by domestic laws the legal position may be different in different legal systems. The second part analyses the legality of ransom payment in UK and the United States’legal systems. Through the study of British and American laws, executive orders, and associated cases, this part makes clear that currently under the British legal system payment to the pirates is not against the law; while in the United States, you need to be careful when make payments to the Somali pirate since payment to specific persons or organizations would violate Foreign Assets Control Regulations and the president’s 13536 Executive Orders.The third part tries to make clear the legal position of piracy ransom in Chinese legal system through the analysis social policy, the public interest, the humanitarian points of view and economic benefits combined with the analysis of legal and social backgrounds of China. Through the analysis of these factors, the conclusion is that to accept the legitimacy of payment is relatively reasonable and feasible approach, also accord with the principles of justice of our society.