A 19th century plan to combat piracy?

Paul Reynolds of the BBC worries that international law (such as Articles 110 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) is hindering anti-piracy efforts.

1. Except where acts of interference derive from powers conferred by treaty, a warship which encounters on the high seas a foreign ship, other than a ship entitled to complete immunity in accordance with articles 95 and 96, is not justified in boarding it unless there is reasonable ground for suspecting that:
(a) the ship is engaged in piracy;
(b) the ship is engaged in the slave trade;
(c) the ship is engaged in unauthorized broadcasting and the flag State of the warship has jurisdiction under article 109;
(d) the ship is without nationality; or
(e) though flying a foreign flag or refusing to show its flag, the ship is, in reality, of the same nationality as the warship.
2. In the cases provided for in paragraph 1, the warship may proceed to verify the ship's right to fly its flag. To this end, it may send a boat under the command of an officer to the suspected ship. If suspicion remains after the documents have been checked, it may proceed to a further examination on board the ship, which must be carried out with all possible consideration.

Although UN Security Council resolutions 1838 and 1846 have authorized "necessary means" to stop piracy on the high seas, all action must be in compliance with international law. Reynolds argues that under such legal norms, Captain Joseph Denman's heroic anti-slavery efforts and Commodore Stephen Decatur's 1815 decisive attack on the Barbary pirates would have been impossible.

Maybe, but international law is hardly the biggest obstacle the world is facing when dealing with piracy. The US Navy says it would take 61 ships to patrol the shipping route in the Gulf of Aden alone. Even if a deployment of this size were reasonable, the pirates are currently operating in an area many times larger than the shipping route, and moving farther afield. Tony Mason, secretary-general of the International Chamber of Shipping is quoted in a TIME article as saying, "the pirates have decided it's easier to go after targets in the Indian Ocean because the navies are not there and it's a much, much more difficult area to patrol because there's an awful lot more sea." The article goes on to explain the strong economic case for piracy and points out the shortcomings of deterrence as an anti-piracy strategy:

Pirates, ex-pirates and pirate recruiters tell TIME that even with all the international attention, the tough talk from leaders around the world and the presence of warships from 20 or so of the most powerful navies, the lure of the piracy trade remains as strong as ever. It only takes a few pirates to hijack a massive vessel, and shipping companies continue to pay out ransoms — in some cases more than $3 million — to secure the release of those precious cargo carriers. Given Somalia's miserable state, the temptation is irresistible ...The international community was hopeful in March when Kenya agreed to try suspected pirates in its courts. That, experts said, would provide a deterrent and at least impose some sense of rule of law off Somalia's coasts. Yet the threat of arrest has done nothing to dissuade the pirates. "Not even 0.2% of the total pirates are arrested, so anybody who is at all intelligent can understand that arrest does not bring fear," says Maryam Jama, a pirate recruiter in Bossaso. "If you get arrested, in prison the others will say, 'Do not worry, you will be out and then hijack another ship with good luck.'"

Nor does international law appear to be the primary challenge to retrieving kidnapped Captain Richard Phillips from the life boat (which, according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has run out of gas) where he is being held by pirates. The USS Bainbridge is on the scene and a team of FBI hostage negotiators are assisting, but as John Wick, director of International Security Solutions told the New York Times, "There’s a lot involved, and it can get very expensive. There can be language problems, all kinds of security problems, and you have to make sure you’re talking to the right person, the ultimate warlord. Just running a dropoff of ransom money can cost $1 million."