On January 21, 2011, the Korean navy commandos rescued the twenty-one crewmen abducted and detained by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. The pirates captured alive were brought to Korea for trial and the prosecutor’s office of Pusan sentenced the leader of the Somali pirate group to life-imprisonment. The other four pirates received imprisonment terms from 12 to 15 years. Regardless of these domestic legal punishments, this rescue operation has raised a few critical international legal questions. The primary objective of this paper is to answer these questions. This research analyzes the international legal characteristics of the Korean Navy’s rescue operation. Then, a few case-studies of military rescue operation are carried out in order to justify the Korean Navy’s rescue operation. The Korean Navy’s rescue operation may be regarded as an act of forcible self-help and realization of existing international legal right.