A small milestone was passed on 17 June that is worth pulling out of the media dustbin. A court in Rotterdam sentenced five Somali pirates to five years each for the failed attempt to board the container ship Samanyolu on 2 January in the Gulf of Aden. At that moment the Netherlands became the first Western land to judge and sentence the Somali scourge of the seas for a couple of centuries.

Irrelevant? Hardly. The fact that it has taken so long for a Western legal system to take such a case on speaks volumes for the difficulties in agreeing on who should (or can) do what to whom in this field. The judge literally said that pirates picked up are often released because no-one wants to take the responsibility to put them on trial. The chances that the defendants claim asylum once they exit prison are high. The Dutch proposal for a special piracy tribunal has gone nowhere. But something needed to be done to break the impasse, considering the piracy issue has been seriously bubbling away since at least 2008. So the process to get them in front of a Dutch judge took longer than usual – it took forty days before they were actually indicted. Will the case solve the problem of what kind of law is required to take on the pirates? Possibly, but it could just open up new problems as well.

The signs would first appear to be that obstacles were overcome to allow the Netherlands to take on this new role in international law. The navy that pisked them up was Danish, after all – but the ship was Dutch. Well, not exactly – Dutch Antillean, from the Caribbean. But as it was the Netherlands and not the Antilles that signed the UN Law of the Sea, and the Antilles are still part of the Dutch Kingdom, this small technical detail could be overcome. Ever onwards to setting a precedent.

But the Rotterdam court spoke out otherwise. It was not necessary for the Netherlands to try all captured Somali pirates. Caution is wise here, otherwise every navy active in the Gulf of Aden will ship its captives off to the Netherlands and let the Dutch work it out. The idea for a piracy tribunal was that it would be located somewhere in the region of Somalia exactly to avoid this scenario. So if there is no reasonable Dutch interest involved, its still Somebody Else’s Problem.

Nevertheless, the message is clear. If necessary, a regular court can take this kind of case on. Victory for the state prosecutor’s office that decided to go this path. Victory for imposing the rule-book that says piracy is a serious crime that comes with a heavy prison price-tag. Victory for those who constantly push the Netherlands as the pioneer state in international law. Victory for a civilised process, as opposed to the Yemeni court that sentenced six Somali pirates to death back in May. And surely victory for the pirates, who in all likelihood won’t be sent back to Somalia after they are released, and who could have access to the Netherlands via an asylum application. The idea of this case actually repelling future piracy was therefore largely ignored. Highly likely that it will lead to a rush on Dutch ships going through the Gulf of Aden.

[Reuters/Jim Young]

The Nuclear Security Summit in Washington has been another occasion to keep the Obama anti-nuke bandwagon on the rails. It has also been delivered a boost with the Ukrainian government announcing it will give up its weapons-grade uranium stockpile. This kind of balances the not-so-useful comments by Sarkozy that he “cannot jeopardise the security and safety of my country” by following suit. Also the failure of the Israelis to turn up. And the fact that the Iranians and the North Koreans were not welcome.

But ok, the point here was to take another step to bolster the otherwise drifting non-proliferation regime, and this meant strengthening the resolve of the Believers and pressuring the Outsiders. Obama’s charm offensive on the Chinese and the Russians seems to be working in this respect, at least in front of the cameras. But we’ll have to wait for the NPT review conference next month to see where the US wants to take the details of this roadshow next.

The Netherlands didn’t make it into the BBC report on the summit, but premier Balkenende did everything he could to get on the media map. Following the debacle over Afghanistan in February, its been a no-holds-barred damage limitation excercise for the Dutch reputation. Thus the government reported gleefully in mid-March that Obama had telephoned Balkenende to invite him personally to the nuclear summit and “to discuss other subjects on the international agenda.”

With this as the entrance ticket, Balkenende could not waste the opportunity to further boost the importance of the Netherlands at this top setting. This he did with the classic Dutch move – if in doubt, establish a new court in The Hague. The proposed tribunal would cover those suspected of leaking  nuclear secrets or materials or who break the rules on nuclear proliferation. Balkenende claimed to have gained support for his suggestion to strengthen international law from the US, France, and Germany during a ‘working dinner’ (presumable somewhere between the dessert and the cheese / Port combo).

We’ve seen this manoeuvering before, notably for a tribunal to cover those arrested for piracy in the Indian Ocean, still something of a legal black hole. The Netherlands proposed an international tribunal for piracy under the umbrella of the UN back in May 2009 but has so far been unable to gather enough support, including from the UN itself. So Balkenende’s foray in DC yesterday opened up a new front in the constant move to establish The Hague as THE site for international law. It is after all “de juridische hoofdstad van de wereld,” as he told De Telegraaf.

This is all nice and good for the Dutch ‘brand’ in international affairs, but the first defendants in this proposed tribunal could be Dutch themselves. On 7 April news broke that four men had been arrested for fraud, forging export and customs documents, and being members of a ‘criminal organisation’ for doing business in ’dual-use’ materials with Iran. It may not have been nuclear-related, but it was certainly some seriously underhand military-related business that brought the heavy hand of the state in to stop it.