Daylife/AP Photo

When pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia surged last year, the world sent its navies to tackle the problem. But now that we are taking the pirates on, does anyone know what to do when we catch them?

It is not just a question of headline-grabbing attacks on prestige ships. Vessels from states across the developed and developing world face the threat of piracy from a new generation of pirates, often from failed or failing states.

Piracy is what is known as a universal crime. That means that because the pirates commit their crimes on the high seas, beyond any one country’s jurisdiction, they are treated as a threat to every country.

In turn, each country may arrest pirates at sea and prosecute them at home.

At least that is how it is supposed to work. In practice, whether a country can prosecute arrested pirates depends on its own laws…

According to Rear Admiral Philip Jones, who heads the European Union’s piracy task force Operation Atalanta, when a navy intervenes to stop a pirate attack, they often do not know whether the pirates they catch can be prosecuted.

“That depends on where we find them, on the nationality of the ship that arrests them, on the nationality of the pirates themselves and the circumstances in which they are arrested. There is a different response available in almost every case.”

This is what happens when you start building ships without yardarms.