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It would, however, correctly include those acts which, as far as their Lordships know, have always been held to be piracy, that is, where the crew or passengers of a vessel on the high seas rise against the captain and officers and seek by armed force to seize the ship. Hall (ubi supra) put such a case in the passage just cited; it is clear from his words that it is not less a case of piracy because the attempt fails.
Before leaving the authorities, it is useful to refer to a most "The valuable treatise on the subject of piracy contained in Research into International Law by the Harvard Law School," published at Cambridge, Mass. in 1932. In it, nearly all the cases, nearly all the statutes, and nearly all the opinions are set out on pages 749 to 1013.
In 1926 the subject of piracy engaged the attention of the League of Nations, who scheduled it as one of a number of subjects, the regulation of which by international agreement seemed to be desirable and realisable at the present moment. Consequently, they appointed a Sub-Committee of their Committee of Experts for the progressive codification of international law and requested the Sub-Committee to prepare a report upon the question.
An account of the proceedings is contained in the League of Nations document, C 196, M 70, 1927 V. The Sub-Committee was presided over by the Japanese jurist Mr. Matsuda, the Japanese Ambassador in Rome, and in their report at page 116, they state: according to international law, piracy consists in sailing the seas for private ends without authorisation from the Government of any State with the object of committing depredations upon pro- perty or acts of violence against persons."
The report was submitted to a number of nations and an analysis of their replies will be found at page 273 of the League of Nations document. A number of States recognised the possi- bility and desirability of an international convention on the question. The replies of Spain, page 154; of Greece, page 168; and especially of Roumania, page 208; deal at some length with the definition of piracy. Roumania adds, page 208 : Mr. Matsuda maintains in his report that it is not necessary to premise explicitly the existence of a desire for gain, because the desire for gain is contained in the larger qualification for private ends. In our view, the act of taking for private ends does not necessarily mean that the attack is inspired by the desire for gain. It is quite possible to attack without authorisation from any State and for private ends not with a desire for gain but for vengeance or for anarchistic or other ends."
The above definition does not in terms deal with an armed rising of the crew or passengers with the object of seizing the ship on the high seas.
However that may be, their Lordships do not themselves propose to hazard a definition of piracy.
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They remember the words of M. Portalis, one of Napoleon's commissioners, who said: "We have guarded against the dangerous ambition of wishing to regulate and foresee everything A new question springs up. Then how is it to be decided ? To this question it is replied that the office of the law is to fix by enlarged rules the general maxims of right and wrong, to establish firm principles fruitful in consequences and not to descend to the detail of all questions which may arise upon each particular topic." (Quoted by Halsbury L.C., in Halsbury's Laws of England, Introduction, page cexi.)
A careful examination of the subject shows a gradual widen- ing of the earlier definition of piracy to bring it from time to time more in consonance with situations either not thought of or not in existence when the older jurisconsults were expressing their opinions.
All that their Lordships propose to do is to answer the question put to them, and having examined all the various cases, all the various statutes and all the opinions of the various jurisconsults cited to them, they have come to the conclusion that the better view and the proper answer to give to the question addressed to them is that stated at the beginning, namely, that actual robbery is not an essential element in the crime of piracy jure gentium, and that a frustrated attempt to commit piratical robbery is equally piracy jure gentium.
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