ABSTRACT
The term 'criminal' is used to describe the state of Afghanistan or the Taliban or Osama Bin Laden. To describe an adversary as 'criminal' might be a useful rhetorical ploy: creating the impression of an enemy to be destroyed and without mercy. Pirates were, of course, international law's original enemies of humankind. Enemies become outlaws, criminals become pirates. Our enemies become enemies of humankind. The ongoing attempts at the international level to define enemies of humankind whether they be terrorists or aggressors has met with failure precisely because these always have the potential to become self-definitions. It is important here to do more than simply make an argument about the return of the pirate or, indeed, produce a Schmittian volley in the direction of Empire. States and state actors cannot, on the conventional definition, commit acts of piracy but nor, seemingly, can private actors acting for public or political ends commit acts of piracy.
