Blinding l@sers
Airship,
That's one of the incongruous laws of war. My understanding is that it originates from a post-WWI ban on `blinding weapons', which was intended to prevent the recurrence of the use of gas attacks to leave thousands of infantrymen blind and lung-scarred but not dead. The wording has been interpreted as also outlawing `laser dazzle sights' - lasers powerful enough potentially to blind, but not to punch holes in metal - which I understand were carried aboard Royal Navy ships during the 1991 Gulf War but subsequently removed.
I would be surprised if the anti-pirate system was legal under these terms, since I understand most pirates use telescopes to spy their targets, as they balance on their wooden legs and chat with their parrots, and a telescope would likely turn a non-blinding YAG laser into a blinding YAG laser.
The use of lasers to damage satellites is a straightforward act of war, no different from shooting at them with fast-moving objects. USAF Space Command must be informed, and give permission, before powerful 10W-class YAG lasers can be used to produce adaptive-optics beacons for astronomical telescopes from sites in the USA.