SUA Convention 1988 and Protocol 2005

The Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation, adopted at Rome in 1988 after the Achille Lauro hijacking, criminalizes seizing a ship by force, violence against persons aboard, and acts endangering safe navigation, and obliges states to prosecute or extradite. The 2005 Protocol added offenses for using a ship to transport weapons of mass destruction or as a weapon, and a boarding regime, closing gaps that the piracy regime, limited to private ends on the high seas, leaves open.