Prize (law)

Prize [pɹɑɪz] is a term used in admiralty law to refer to equipment, vehicles, vessels, and cargo captured during armed conflict. The most common use of prize in this sense is the capture of an enemy ship and its cargo as a prize of war. In the past, the capturing force would commonly be allotted a share of the worth of the captured prize. Nations often granted letters of marque that would entitle private parties to capture enemy property, usually ships. Once the ship was secured on friendly territory, it would be made the subject of a prize case, an in rem proceeding in which the court determined the status of the condemned property and the manner in which it was to be disposed of.

History and sources of prize law

At the outset, prize taking was all smash and grab "like breaking a jeweler's window," but by the fifteenth century a body of guiding rules, the maritime law of nations, had begun to evolve. Grotius's seminal treatise on international law published in 1604 called De Iure Praedae Commentarius (Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty) (of which Chapter 12, "Mare Liberum" inter alia founded the doctrine of freedom of the seas) was an advocate's brief justifying Dutch seizures of Spanish and Portuguese shipping. Grotius defends the practice of taking prizes as not merely traditional or customary but just. His Commentary points out that the etymology of the name of the Greek war god Ares was the verb "to seize;" that the law of nations had deemed looting enemy property legal since the beginning of Western recorded history in Homeric times.

Law

Law is a system of rules that are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior. Laws can be made by a collective legislature or by a single legislator, resulting in statutes, by the executive through decrees and regulations, or by judges through binding precedent, normally in common law jurisdictions. Private individuals can create legally binding contracts, including arbitration agreements that may elect to accept alternative arbitration to the normal court process. The formation of laws themselves may be influenced by a constitution, written or tacit, and the rights encoded therein. The law shapes politics, economics, history and society in various ways and serves as a mediator of relations between people.

A general distinction can be made between (a) civil law jurisdictions (including Catholic canon law and socialist law), in which the legislature or other central body codifies and consolidates their laws, and (b) common law systems, where judge-made precedent is accepted as binding law. Historically, religious laws played a significant role even in settling of secular matters, which is still the case in some religious communities, particularly Jewish, and some countries, particularly Islamic. Islamic Sharia law is the world's most widely used religious law.

The Prize

The Prize may refer to:

See also

Private law

Private law is that part of a civil law legal system which is part of the jus commune that involves relationships between individuals, such as the law of contracts or torts (as it is called in the common law), and the law of obligations (as it is called in civil legal systems). It is to be distinguished from public law, which deals with relationships between both natural and artificial persons (i.e., organizations) and the state, including regulatory statutes, penal law and other law that affects the public order. In general terms, private law involves interactions between private citizens, whereas public law involves interrelations between the state and the general population.

Private law in common law jurisdictions

The concept of private law in common law countries is a little more broad, in that it also encompasses private relationships between governments and private individuals or other entities. That is, relationships between governments and individuals based on the law of contract or torts are governed by private law, and are not considered to be within the scope of public law

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg (Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг, tr. Sankt-Peterburg; IPA: [ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk]) is the second largest city in Russia. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject (a federal city). It is located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. In 1914 the name of the city was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd (Russian: Петрогра́д; IPA: [pʲɪtrɐˈgrat]), in 1924 to Leningrad (Russian: Ленингра́д; IPA: [lʲɪnʲɪnˈgrat]), and in 1991, back to Saint Petersburg. In Russian literature, informal documents, and discourse, the word "Saint" is usually omitted, leaving "Petersburg". In casual conversation Russians may drop the "burg" as well, referring to it as "Peter": Russian: Питер (Piter).

Tsar Peter the Great founded Saint Petersburg on May 27 [O.S. 16] 1703. Between 1713–1728 and 1732–1918 Saint Petersburg functioned as the imperial capital of Russia. In 1918 the central government bodies moved from Saint Petersburg (then named Petrograd) to Moscow. It is Russia's second-largest city after Moscow, with 5 million inhabitants (2012), and the fourth most populated federal subject. Saint Petersburg is a major European cultural center, and also an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea.