Letters of Marque and Reprisal

[Mossie]

I mean that that kind of thing has already happened RW, legally sanctioned or otherwise.

[rickshaw]

I'm still in favour of "setting a thief to catch a thief".  Find a Henry Morgan amongst the pirates and make him the Governor of the coast.  Pay him to control the pirates and make it worth his while to make sure that the pirates can't buy him.

Trouble with that is:

1. The pirates who'd want to buy him have now got a LOT of money, so you'd have to pay him even more,

2. In that part of the world, setting anybody up with that kind of money makes him a de-facto local warlord (in fact he'd have to be to survive). What do you do when he goes off the rails, and journalists are pointing cameras at mass graves and abuse survivors and asking who paid for it all?

I agree with the first.  I disagree with the second.  Merely pay him NOT to "go off the rails".   Alternatively, you just walk away and say, "we didn't pay him to do that..." and indict him in the ICC.   Either way, it would be cheaper and easier than trying to hunt down the pirates on the high seas IMO.

Oh, and I'd make his pay conditional on him allowing and protecting aid projects such as schools, farms, industries, etc to make it so that pirates are less likely to need to turn to pirating.