On March 13, 2009 the Draft Law on the Penalization of Acts of Piracy and Measures against Acts of Piracy�E�Eew Piracy Law�E�was approved by the Cabinet and submitted to the Diet, which was currently in session. The mass media's response to the New Piracy Law was to focus on its expansion of parameters for the appropriate use of force and the vessels to be protected, while only a limited number of newspapers mentioned that the New Law is in fact a General Law. In this article, I would like to examine the New Piracy Law from the little discussed General Law perspective.