The Enemy of All: Piracy and the Law of Nations

by Daniel Heller-Roazen

Overview

The pirate is the original enemy of humankind. Before humanitarian organizations, human rights, and the establishment of international law in the early modern period, the Roman statesmen already made this point perfectly clear. As Cicero famously remarked, there are certain enemies with whom one may negotiate and with whom, circumstances permitting, one may establish a truce. But there is also an enemy with whom treaties are in vain and war remains incessant. This is the pirate, whom the ancient jurists considered to be “the enemy of all.”

Departing from Cicero’s account of foes, The Enemy of All reconstructs the shifting place of the pirate in legal and political thought from the ancient to the medieval, modern, and contemporary periods. Antiquity already encountered the sea thief in politics as in the law. Classical letters from Homer to the end of the Roman Empire contain ample accounts of pirates of various sorts.

The Roman jurists assigned to the pirate as a legal person an exceptional position in civil and international law. Their theory was to be the point of departure for the Christian jurists of the Middle Ages, who defined the pirate as “the enemy of the human species.” Later, the thinkers and statesmen of modernity went one step further. Elaborating a new international code of law and ethics, the writers of the Enlightenment represented the pirate as the ultimate “enemy of humanity.”

Today, as Heller-Roazen argues, the pirate furnishes the key to the contemporary paradigm of the universal foe. This is a legal and political person of exception, neither criminal nor enemy, who inhabits an extraterritorial region. Against such a foe, states may wage extraordinary battles, policing politics and justifying military measures in the name of welfare and security.

Drawing on the diverse materials of several disciplines, from law and history to political theory and literature, The Enemy of All brings to light a single paradigm that defines the act of piracy. This “piratical paradigm” consists in the conjunction of four traits: a region beyond territorial jurisdiction; agents who may not be identified with an established state; the collapse of the distinction between criminal and political categories; and the transformation of the concept of war.

Whenever we hear of regions beyond “the line of the law,” in which acts of “indiscriminate aggression” have been committed “against humanity,” we must begin to recognize that these are acts of piracy. Long said to be a person of the distant past, the enemy of all is closer to us today than we may think. Indeed, he may never have been closer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781890951948
Publisher:	Zone Books
Publication date:	08/10/2009
Series:	Zone Books
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Daniel Heller-Roazen is the Arthur W. Marks '19 Professor of Comparative Literature and the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University. He is the author of Echolalias: On the Forgetting of Language, The Inner Touch: Archaeology of a Sensation, The Enemy of All: Piracy and the Law of Nations, and The Fifth Hammer: Pythagoras and the Disharmony of the World, all published by Zone Books.

What People are Saying About This

Wendy Brown

"Classics, history, law, literature, philosophy, jurisprudence, and above all language--these are the archives Heller-Roazen artfully enlists for his story of the development and contemporary relevance of the 'piratical paradigm'. One need not concur precisely with the political finale of this learned and lucid work to be awed, instructed, and sometimes even delighted by its masterful unfolding. The Enemy of All makes an invaluable contribution to comprehending the altered terrain of international politics and ethics occasioned by the emergence of terror and rogue states."--Wendy Brown, Emanuel Heller Professor of Political Science,
University of California, Berkeley

Endorsement

Classics, history, law, literature, philosophy, jurisprudence, and above all language—these are the archives Heller-Roazen artfully enlists for his story of the development and contemporary relevance of the 'piratical paradigm'. One need not concur precisely with the political finale of this learned and lucid work to be awed, instructed, and sometimes even delighted by its masterful unfolding. The Enemy of All makes an invaluable contribution to comprehending the altered terrain of international politics and ethics occasioned by the emergence of terror and rogue states.

—Wendy Brown, Emanuel Heller Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley

From the Publisher

Classics, history, law, literature, philosophy, jurisprudence, and above all language—these are the archives Heller-Roazen artfully enlists for his story of the development and contemporary relevance of the 'piratical paradigm'. One need not concur precisely with the political finale of this learned and lucid work to be awed, instructed, and sometimes even delighted by its masterful unfolding. The Enemy of All makes an invaluable contribution to comprehending the altered terrain of international politics and ethics occasioned by the emergence of terror and rogue states.

—Wendy Brown, Emanuel Heller Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley

Editorial Reviews

"Brimming with learning and yet delightful to read, this brief book offers an enlightening and truly original reflection, at the crossroads of history, law andphilosophy, on the confusions that threaten us since September 11th."

Le Figaro

"Combining the political, legal, philosophical, geographical, and historical aspects of his subject, Heller-Roazen leads us from antiquity to Afghanistan with clarity. While America’s present-day struggles are not his main concern, the long-view positions he takes will certainly be of interest to readers who are asking more-crucial-than-ever questions."

Rain Taxi

"Daniel Heller-Roazen has dropped an intellectual explosive whose dangerousness we only notice once we have read the book through to the end…Even if one doesn’t follow Heller-Roazen’s political conclusions: This is book is as wise as it is learned. In a country that does not think about the figure of the pirate much because of its focus on the land, it can clarify a great deal."—-Herfried Münkler, Die Zeit

From the Publisher

Daniel Heller-Roazen has laid an intellectual explosive charge [...] The pirate is of fundamental relevance for international legal theory and political action, since he cannot be recognized as an enemy nor can he be treated as criminal. In a binary system, the pirate functions as the problematic third. Daniel Heller-Roazen has tracked down this figure over a period of more than two thousand years, and from the problem of the third he has deduced startling conclusions [....] This book is as learned as it is intelligent and, here, on land, where we have rarely concerned ourselves with the pirate, our gaze being turned towards the shore, this book holds the power to clarify a great deal.

—Herfried Münkler Die Zeit

Reviews

Brilliant, well-researched, and politically acute

Il Manifesto