Analysis of "Piracy" as a domestic crime from the perspective of substantive criminal law

Due to the increasing growth of maritime piracy during the last two decades, many countries of the world updated their domestic laws with the aim of equipping themselves as much as possible against this emerging phenomenon. In this regard, the specific criminalization of sea piracy, increasing punishment, facilitating the proof of the elements of the crime of sea piracy and even reversing the burden of proof of some elements of this crime are such measures. Unfortunately, despite the fact that its ships have been the target of pirate attacks in recent years, our country has not taken specific and specific measures in this regard at the legislative level. 

The current research method is a descriptive analytical method and the method of collecting information is a library method. 

Since sea piracy has not been criminalized as an independent crime in Iran's criminal law and its elements have not been defined, as a result, Iranian courts are forced to use general criminal regulations to try and punish arrested pirates. In the present research, an attempt has been made to define sea piracy as a general internal crime by using domestic laws and some international documents that our country is a member of, in the same way as it is used in the case of domestic crimes, and its three elements are identified. and finally, applicable punishments for the perpetrators of sea piracy in different cases and situations should be specified. In doing this, domestic laws as well as some international documents that our country is a member of and other international regulations have been used.