On Sept. 6, Washington and Lee law professor Mark Drumbl participated in a conference at Case Western Reserve School of Law titled “End Game! An International Conference on Combating Piracy.” The event was sponsored by the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center, the American Society of International Law, the Public International Law and Policy Group, the International Criminal Law Network, and the American Branch of the International Law Association. From the conference website:
For the moment pirate attacks are down, but piracy continues to present a major threat to world shipping. Even with greatly expanded patrolling by international navies and increased use of private security forces, there have been 48 pirate attacks, 448 seamen were held hostage by pirates, and global economic losses due to piracy topped 5 billion dollars in the last twelve months. Meanwhile, renewed political turmoil in Somalia and Yemen is sowing the seeds for a fresh generation of pirates with increasingly deadly tactics. This conference brings together two-dozen of the world’s foremost counter-piracy experts to analyze the novel legal challenges and options related to this new phase in the fight against piracy.
Drumbl presented as part of a panel titled “Deterring the Use of Child Pirates.” Drumbl is author of Reimagining Child Soldiers in International Law and Policy (Oxford University Press), a ground-breaking book that challenges much of conventional wisdom when it comes to preventing child soldiering, meaningfully reintegrating child soldiers, and engaging with former child solders as vibrant contributors to post-conflict reconciliation.
