Thread 17849093

Would we still have proper Pirates today if Pillage wasn't outlawed by the 1907 Hague convention?
Pillage refers to looting noncombatants in wartime, which is literally all pirates did. They were privateers that were paid to raid enemy merchant vessels during times of naval warfare and they ended up stealing cargo because governments hardly payed shit. If pillage wasn't against international law, would pirates still be a thing today?

What does the Hague Convention have to do with privacy?

>>17849097
I think I literally explained it in my post

>>17849093 (OP)
pirates are still a thing today

>>17849235
Somalis with boats aren't real pirates though, they're just random theives that happen to be on the water. Real pirates had some legitimacy by royal charter.

>>17849239
>no true scotsman
Next you're telling me pirating a game or movie also isn't "real" piracy.

>>17849093 (OP)
Nah, free travel and free trade across the seas was already declared a general right by Grotius. Him and others then defined what articles constituted contraband and limited belligerent's right to search.

Commercial raiding persisted into WW2, mind, and Submarine blockades are a type of piracy.

>>17849093 (OP)
There are still some dangerous parts of the world where modern pirates will kill everyone onboard a ship and steal the ship or boat,
If you have a shortwave radio listen to 14.300

https://boatwatch.org/
https://mmsn.org/

>>17849239
Privateers had a letter of marque.
Pirates (who were often former privateers) were just thieves onna sea.

>>17849097
you are the most annoying faggot in 4chan history

>>17849428
>Pirates (who were often former privateers) were just thieves onna sea.
This is where the term gets a bit dubious.
Not all pirates were former privateers, privateers were just merchant vessels, contracted by the government, to conduct raids on enemy merchant vessels. It was done this way in times of naval warfare, because governments quickly realized that enemy merchant ships were too important of targets to just ignore, but at the same time, it would be a waste of money and manpower to send actual naval vessels after them, so privateers were hired to fill this gap, oftentimes privateers would steal cargo from enemy merchant vessels to either keep for themselves or sell later on the black market and the government would turn the other cheeck, it was the act of stealing itself that was known as "piracy". Some former privateers then realized stealing shit was more lucritive than chasing government contracts, and just became pirates fulltime.