Good day all. We have a bit of a throwback here. Recently, the United States has begin seizing Iranian tankers along with the oil they’re carrying. To a lesser extent, the Navy has also been taking Russian ship that are part of their “Black fleet. This is creating a problem on what to do with the ships and cargo.
There are a number of legal issues that have to be resolved when ships like these are taken by the Navy. First, of course, is the crew. Next is the cargo and then the actual ship itself. The regular courts really aren’t set up to handle this, so the DoJ is going back in time and looking to set up Prize Courts. Here are the details from Newsmax:
The Department of Justice is seeking to revive a maritime court system that has been largely unused since the Spanish-American War to streamline the process for claiming Iranian oil tankers seized by the U.S. military as prizes, Bloomberg Law reported Wednesday, citing three people familiar with the plans.
Aaron Reitz, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas, whose office is working with DOJ on the initiative, confirmed to Bloomberg Law that the department is “now reviving” prize courts, which he described as an “ancient body of maritime law.”
Originally, these courts were set up in a number of Maritime nations, such as Great Britain and the United States. As I understand it, at least for the United States, the Navy wasn’t eligible to collect anything, however privateers with a Letter of Marque and Reprisal were.
Prize courts can operate in any U.S. district court that has jurisdiction over the port in which the captured ship is taken, according to Bloomberg Law. Once the district court adopts rules for the proceedings, it could adjudicate a prize claim filed by the U.S. attorney.
“Our national security interests may require the United States military to seize vessels or cargo supporting the enemy during military conflict,” Reitz said in a statement to Bloomberg Law. “If that happens, our federal courts must be ready to adjudicate the disposition of these captured vessels and cargo.”
If adopted, the plan would offer a faster path for federal prosecutors to claim oil and other cargo taken from enemy or neutral vessels as U.S. property, according to Bloomberg Law. The seized goods would then be sold, with proceeds transferred to the Treasury.
Sadly, as I mentioned earlier, military personnel aren’t allowed to make any money from the proceeds. Considering the value of the cargo, that can be worth $10’s of millions of dollars. Then there is the actual ship. Depending on it’s seaworthiness, it’s age and it’s size/capacity, it could be worth over $100 million dollars. That would be pure profit for the United States.
The plan, if implemented, is expected to face legal challenges over whether the conflict with Iran constitutes hostilities that permit use of the Prize Act and whether captures would be lawful without congressional authorization of the conflict.
That is a big question, and one I am not qualified to answer. I know that the Constitution requires the Congress to authorize a Letter of Marque and Reprisal, however, those would normally be issued to a Privateer, not a United States military vessel.
Shipowners and Iranian terrorism victims are among the potential litigants expected to challenge the use of prize courts, according to Bloomberg Law. DOJ, the U.S. Navy, and the judiciary would also face operational hurdles in carrying out a court process with which they have no modern experience.
One of the things that would need to be unwound is who actually owns the ship? Usually, the ownership is clouded due to all the shell companies that are set up to disguise who it actually belongs to. However, with modern technical systems, the Government knows where that ship was and where it took on it’s cargo. At the very least, the cargo would be forfeited.
“This really is a historical area of law that is not tested in modern times,” Allison Luzwick, a Holland & Knight attorney specializing in the maritime industry, told Bloomberg Law. She co-wrote a July article examining how reviving prize law could reshape maritime seizure risks.
“Great strides have been made in international law and the law of war since the late 1800s, and all of that is going to come into play when we’re actually looking at proceedings involving a vessel that is potentially seized under Prize Act authority,” Luzwick said.
One of the reasons that they are looking back at Prize Courts is that the current tools aren’t really set up for what the Administration is doing.
Legal experts see civil forfeiture as an imperfect model for U.S. efforts to choke Iran’s economy. In one case involving a Venezuelan supertanker allegedly used to support Iran, DOJ filed a civil complaint seeking to forfeit and sell the ship and its cargo.
Several third parties, including the shipping company and families of victims of Iranian terrorism holding judgments under a separate statute, have intervened, slowing the process.
Prize law, while carrying its own legal risks, could provide a less complicated process for transferring proceeds and reduce the ability of outside claimants to delay a sale, Luzwick and other lawyers told Bloomberg Law.
There has been talk in the past about issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal to private citizens to deal with the drug cartels. Of course, nothing came of it. Congress is made up of a few patriotic, hard charging Americans, a large number of “Pooftah’s,” general spineless squishes and, of course, Democrats. Perhaps it’s time to bring back actual privateers. There was a treaty signed in 1856 called the Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law that, among other things, banned Letters of Marque and Privateers. Care to guess which country did NOT sign it?
While the United States does follow the treaty, we are not bound by it. Perhaps it’s time to reconsider that policy and start issuing a few Letters of Marque. I know there are a few very interested parties. In fact, I’ve come up with a little ditty that people applying for a Letter of Marque can sing as they start equipping their ships.
A Privateering We Shall Go
(updated sea-shanty, same rolling 6/8 feel)
Chorus
A privateering we shall go,
Heave ho, me hearties, heave ho!
A privateering we shall go,
Yo-ho and away we go!
Verse 1
The letter of marque is in me hand,
The ship is fast and the crew is grand.
We’ll hunt the prizes on the foam,
And bring the oil and glory home.
Verse 2
Off the coast of Iran the tankers sail,
Heavy with oil on the southern gale.
We’ll take those oil tankers on the beam,
And claim the prize that the president shall deem.
Verse 3
The cannon’s roar and the cutlass gleam,
We’ll board the tankers on the stream.
No navy pay, just prize and share,
A privateer’s life is free and fair.
Verse 4
When the war is done and the sails come down,
We’ll drink Madeira in a foreign town.
But till that day the wind shall blow—
A privateering we shall go!
Thatisall
~The Angry Webmaster~
