News reports that several "Anti-Whalers" from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society were being held on a Japanese whaling vessel near Antarctica after they boarded the vessel.
Representatives of the Japan Institute for Cetacean Research called the act of boarding "piracy". Under Art. 101 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea:
Piracy consists of any of the following acts:
(a) any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, and directed:
(i) on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft;
(ii) against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State;
(b) any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an aircraft with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft;
(c) any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in subparagraph (a) or (b).
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