القرصنة البحرية في البحر العام (البحر العالي) على ضوء قانون البحار الدولي.

Abstract

Though the legal regime which has been put by the international community, but the acts of maritime piracy formed and still poses a tremendous threat to the international security and economy, especially in this era. These acts of maritime piracy have caused costly losses for both small and big countries, particularly, in maritime trade, transportation and also in the field of maritime fishing. They were often a reason to increase insurance costs for the maritime ships ,moreover, they have stood as a barrier in the supply, fuel supply, energy and goods, which has greatly affected the capacities and possibilities of these countries, forcing them repeatedly to change the usual course of their ships and bear the burden. Therefore, this dissertation comes to look for the effectiveness of this legal regime put by the international community till now, to face acts of maritime piracy at the high seas, hoping to eliminate them, or at least to limit them to a further extent. As a preamble to get in this research, we provide the study by an introductory chapter based on showing the issue of the evolution of the situation on the high seas between dependence and freedom through history, with clarifying that, if the path of struggle between the two principles on the legal level is long and hard, the ultimate victory was for high seas freedom principle by recognizing it. Which leads to set some legal results containing; the freedom of coastal countries or non-coastal countries to benefit from high seas on navigation equality, or to manage ships that rise their flags in this maritime domain, beside to other freedoms, the freedom of navigation is fundamental to it like, fishing, laying of cables and pipelines and scientific research…etc., because practicing these freedoms does not happen only by using the ships which coursing into these seas. And in return to these freedoms, it should be committed to the legal restrictions which have been imposed by the public international law, basically, criminalizing the maritime piracy and fighting it, and this is the core of this thesis which consists of two chapters ; the first chapter examined the issue of the maritime piracy as a restriction upon the principle of the high seas freedom, particular, the most important international agreements which organized this topic including the Geneva Convention on the High Seas in 1958, and the United Nation Convention to the general Sea Law of 1982 (the general convention on the law of the seas), in addition to the Rome Convention for the Suppression of Offenses against the Safety of maritime navigation in 1988 and the Protocol amending it, which did not all mention a unified definition of the maritime piracy crime, and which for it has been criticized for this. The second chapter of this study deals with the international practice concerning the maritime piracy crime, the legal procedures, and preventive measures followed to force it and the various international efforts made to fight and eliminate it. A number of results have been reached, the most important of which is that at the theoretical level or legal texts, it seems that the intention of international cooperation regarding combating maritime piracy exists and exists, despite the flaws attached to these texts, but at the level of relevant international committees and institutions, the problem remains, because piracy still exists. In all parts of the world it is constantly evolving, and to varying degrees. Cooperation in this field is not in order to create actual institutions to fight or reduce this crime. Rather, it seems that there is a deliberate act and other implicit intentions other than the apparent and declared intentions to fight it, which are mainly represented in compromising the overeignty of states, and what It occurs in the coasts of Somalia, the Gulf of Aden, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Gulf of Guinea, which is the truest evidence of that. On the other hand, it can be said that there are many political and strategic reasons, important and dangerous at the same time, that play a role in fueling this crime and contributing to its survival compromising the security of Arab countries, especially the State of Palestine, which is occupied by the Zionist entity.