Pracy Under The Sea Pufendorf

While there are certain commonalities in the approach to the freedom and jurisdiction of the sea that is taken by Grotius, and the stance adopted by Pufendorf, there are also significant differences. These differences primarily manifest themselves in notions of whether portions of the ocean can be privately owned. The implications for piracy are affected in different ways according to the philosophical template that is adopted.
According to Grotius, as outlined in Mare Liberum, the sea is international territory and belongs to no country or power in particular. Therefore, all nations may engage in trade upon the seas and there is no legislation that particularly applies to the high seas. “Every nation is free to travel to every other nation and to trade with it” (Grotius, p. 7). This has two distinct implications for piracy depending in the interpretation of Grotius’s stance. If by the “free seas” it is taken to mean that there is not a set of
Pufendorf disagrees with Grotius’s view that the “unbounded” character of the sea precludes the possibility of it being owned. Pufendorf based in his position in natural law, arguing that property has its origins in negative community (Pufendorf, p. 175). In other words, the natural world is free and open, but can be appropriated with contractual consent. Pufendorf does not level restrictions in terms of how this contractual consent is to be negotiated (Fitzmaurice, 2014). It is on this basis that there is some room for certain part of the sea to be “owned”. This actually has even a weightier implication for privacy that Grotius’s position. If a portion of the sea is “owned”, then the punishment for piracy would be on a par with the punishment for robbing a house, or stealing any form of