Once upon a time, when I was younger, not really younger in the sense that I was young, but younger in the sense that I was not as old as I currently am–I am rather old in terms of the number of years that I have lived mapped to my life expectancy–which gets longer each day I am alive… but, I digress; back to ‘when I was younger.’ When I was younger, I studied juridical questions surrounding pirates–the seafaring ones, not the digital ones. It is topic that has not only peaked the interest of some of the most brilliant minds of the ages, but one that has left a number of unanswered questions. What really got me hooked was a comment within book written by a Roman philosopher/Statesman by the name Cicero–hard K sound for the C… it’s a Latin thing. Anyway, in 65 BCE (or sometime near 65 BCE–it was a long time ago and I was not personally there) Cicero wrote this:
“…nam pirata non est ex perduellium numero definitus, sed communis hostis omnium: cum hoc nec fides debut nec jus jurandum, ease commune.” (1887:90).
Basically, his commentary notes that pirates occupy an amorphous socio-legal space, neither criminal nor combatant at war, such that obligations and oaths between non-pirates and pirates are not binding. What is both interesting and noteworthy is that Cicero’s commentary is not a legal argument sanctioning piratical action, but a discourse on moral and ethical social relations. Over the centuries, however, many have used Cicero’s statement regarding social relations as fuel to suggest that pirates are both criminals and enemy combatants (think for a second of that mix and the challenges that that particular mix poses), thus the juridical enemy of all.
Over the next nearly two-thousand years, Cicero’s commentary on pirates, communis hostis omnium–you may recognize the more oft referenced hostis humani generis–was used as juridical fact to criminalize maritime piracy under both municipal and international law. Yet, over those nearly two millennia one thing remained the same: the seizing State (the State that seized the pirate) was the State that was responsible for adjudicating the alleged act of piracy–which means that the seizing/adjudicating State must have a law criminalizing the act of piracy. In this respect, the State created law, enforced law and adjudicated law. From the standpoint of jurisdiction this is not only important, it is foundational.
Fast forward to the late naughts of the first decade of the twenty-first century. A new fangled group of maritime pirates were threatening commerce on the waters off the Horn of Africa; Somali pirates. And while Somali pirates are not de facto sympathetic actors, Cicero’s logic–his social commentary–led me to challenge conventional juridical approaches that had been applied to the problem of Somali piracy.
It became blatantly clear to me that Somali pirates, had become the object of a very unique form of juridical (re)constructivism in the form of third-party jurisdictional piracy courts. In short, Somalis who pirated became the only national or social group subject to the laws of a nation whose laws they had not broken–assuming those States had laws criminalizing the act of which they were accused (for a while, Kenya did not). In short, Somali pirates–Somalis accused of piracy–were tried in a nation whose jurisdiction did not extend to the alleged illegal action.
I questioned if these individuals were truly the the enemy of all, or merely a group of marginalized deviants subject to radical changes in the formation and application of both international and municipal law?
If I had to summarize my prior work, I would do so as follows:
Broadly stated, my research centered on the formation, application and socio-history of international law. I focused on maritime piracy in order to illuminate inequalities in the creation and application of law. Part of this research was to investigate the relationship of political and juridical structures (social control apparatuses) to both elite and pedestrian forms of deviance and their related punishments or sanctions. In this respect, I studied the effects of power, or more specifically power asymmetries, on the creation and application of law.
For an academic, it doesn’t get much cooler than that… hanging out with pirates, defense attorneys, and prosecutors on the streets of Mombasa, Kenya and sadly–for the pirates–in the courts of the Seychelles. Unless of course you study something that is more engrossing than pirates (which I now do): violence in sport.
The punches of boxing, the chokes, arm-bars and slams of MMA, the bone-jarring late hits of football, the slashing and board checks of hockey, the scrums and pig-piles of Rugby, the list goes on and on. And as for methods, while I rely on socio-histories to critic and fashion theory, I test theory via an examination of social processes and structures, and via good old Wacquantian participant observation–nod to Loic Wacquant of Berkeley.
My new project on sports violence is really a two-parter. First, it is a socio-historical examination of the laws and social control apparatuses created to regulate sports violence. I noticed that throughout history States have created bodies to regulate and control sportive contests and more importantly, sports (part of the rules) and sportive (beyond the rules) violence. This regulation and control has covered competitors, competitions, agents, managers, matchmakers, houses, leagues, and venues. These entities also establish rules regarding the interactions between athletes (competitors), between the athletes and the viewing competitors and, to some extent, between the viewing public. Yet, if we use history as a guide, it becomes evident that regulation and control have been lax, and marred by corruption.
States corrupt… no–I jest! But there is more. Although on paper State-bodies regulate and sanction sports violence, in practice, the regulation and control of sports violence rest with a mix of private sanctioning organizations, and those who control the venues, competitions, and competitors. Even more interesting to those who study organizations, in practice the organizations, behave as vertical monopolies.
While the sanction and regulation of sports violence is itself a phenomenon worthy of study, I am particularly interested in the social functions of moving to the private sphere what Max Weber noted was a primary function of the State—the monopoly on violence.
Preliminary research suggests: 1. throughout history, States have sanctioned the governance of sports violence to non-State actors as a means of social control, with electronic media amplifying its effectiveness, and 2. the potential for increased private sector profits will further divorce the State from the governance and supervision of sports violence–how else could a person who lacks even amateur boxer experience be given a title fight against the winningest boxer in the history of the sport? [So much my opinion regarding Mayweather vs. McGregor, or any boxing match including Jake Paul against a professional boxer.. oh wait, he hasn’t yet fought a professional boxer.]
The second part of my project is theory related. A brilliant theorist by the name of Norbert Elias stated that as society(ies) become more “civilized” violence decresed–fortunately, Elias defined the process of civilizing. His theory is pretty much the gold standard–civilizing increases, violence decreases. Elias and a group of his students even provided empirical evidence to show that sport was part of this civilizing evolution. As society(ies) sportified games, violence decreased. Brilliant stuff. But, Elias and his students were missing something. Actually, two things one qualitative and one quantitative … or so says Tirshfield–that’s me.
Take SOCI 120T–Sports Violence at UCSD to find out what they are missing; or, you could read the book–I’m writing it now. It should be out in 2024.
On a personal note, I am married to a wonderful woman who captains a Boeing 787–mostly to Australia, Japan or the United Kingdom (I know, not as cool as heavily bruised or broken body parts on the field of play, but still pretty cool), and am the parent of two amazing adult children; one, a graduate of University of California, Santa Cruz–go Slugs!–who works in private equity at RX3 Partners, and the other, a graduate of Columbia University and NYU Abu Dhabi, who works as a diplomat for the United States Department of State. To maintain sanity, I practice Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and Yoga–we all need a little violence in our play… the Jiu-jitsu, not the yoga.