Abstract
Piracy is an international phenomenon since Antiquity. Its repression was the subject of different measures that states have taken. But, it's from the 15th century to the 18th century that its internationalization has been dedicated. The discovery of the New World, commerce and profits which it spawned have pushed nations to take up the case against “the enemy of the human kind”.Nations have thereby succeeded in establishing a common definition then to implement legal instruments allowing the application of the universal jurisdiction. Thus defined, this last allows any State to pursue and arrest pirates without consideration of naturality and to bring them in his country to been prosecuted according his internal law. This particular repression considers of his various components of the infraction as well as the need for an effective repression.Studying the repression of piracy in Caribbean between the 15th and the 18th centuries allows to get a better understanding of the creation of the particular mechanism of universal jurisdiction, to grasp its stakes and contours and to apprehend more easily an international mechanism still exploited today.