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Violence against Maritime Navigation and
Maritime Fixed Platforms (18 U.S.C. § § 2280, 2281)
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Sections 2280 and 2281, which became effective on March 6,
1995, are the results of the International Convention for the
Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime
Navigation and its accompanying Protocol for the Suppression of
Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Fixed Platforms located on the
Continental Shelf. The Convention was in response to the hijacking
of the Achille Lauro cruise ship in the Mediterranean
Sea in 1985. Section 2280 provides for ships the same protection
under international law against violent activity that earlier had
been developed for aircraft under the Hague Convention against
aircraft piracy and the Montreal Convention against the sabotage of
aircraft. (Compare § 2280 with 18 U.S.C. §
32 and 49 U.S.C. § 46502.) There is extraterritorial
jurisdiction whenever the prohibited activity is directed against
a United States flagged ship, a perpetrator is a national of the
United States, a national of the United States is seized,
threatened, injured, or killed during the commission of the
prohibited activity, or the offender is subsequently found in the
United States. Section 2281 provides similar coverage for such
prohibited activity directed against off-shore fixed platforms.
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