strikers

Somalian Pirates and the Law of the Sea: International Law in Crisis

Hriti Parekh

OCTOBER 7, 2020 11:30:14 PM

Edited by: Vishwajeet Deshmukh | Government Law College Mumbai, INHriti Parekh, a student from Hidayatullah National Law University (HNLU), Raipur, India discusses the international legal perspective of Somalian piracy activities...

“Somalia is a land that has descended so deeply into misery that “failed state” is too generous a description for the country.” –TIME Magazine

In August 2020, three Iranian hostages who had been held for five years were freed by Somalian pirates, as contradictory news emerged that another ship had been intercepted after a three-year pause. The three Iranian hostages were the last of the crew of FV Siraj, an Iranian fishing vessel intercepted by pirates on 22 March 2015. For the Somalian pirates, who’ve held over 2,300 crew between 2010 and 2019, this liberation was supposed to mark the end of almost a decade of international maritime piracy. However, in other news, six armed men hijacked the Panama-flagged Aegean II off the coast of Somalia, after it had engine problems, as mentioned by a regional governor in Somalia.

Considering this and a significant number of attacks on maritime transport vehicles in the recent past, it becomes important to understand the root causes and lack of law enforcement in order to combat Piracy and the Emergence of Modern Day Pirates. The Somalian Piracy crisis emerged many years ago and appears to pose a significant problem for the international community. Even though piracy is an international crime for which the concept of universal jurisdiction extends, states operating off Somalia’s coast face significant difficulties in prosecuting pirates (Universal jurisdiction doctrine provides that every court has the authority to prosecute criminals who have perpetrated international offenses such as piracy.) 

In order to understand the status quo of piracy off the coast of Somalia, it’s important to understand its history. The author aims to do an analysis of International Piracy and the role of the Law of the Sea in countering one of the oldest international crimes.

The nature of Somali piracy is directly related to the country’s political environment, which, since 1991 has been ravaged by civil war and where the government occupies just one portion of the capital. The issue is compounded by Somalia’s geography. About 40% of world exchange has to go across the short straight line between the Horn of Africa and the Arab Peninsula. The volatile humanitarian crisis in Somalia allows more and more citizens to conduct acts of piracy and this makes it almost impossible to enforce the law. At the same time, the wage disparity between the wealthy and the weak has greatly increased. Somalia has the world’s freest liberated open market economy, with no central bank regulating money flow, fixing interest rates, or managing inflation, which could be another reason for people to get involved in crimes like that of Piracy.

Piracy is also said to be funded by influential warlords from Somalia who maintain influence over their respective regions of power; they periodically finance and enjoy the rewards of pirate attacks in the event of a productive hijacking and ransom payment. Pirates are usually active outside the coastal towns of Somalia, where they can easily dock their own skiffs and retrieve their stolen goods and captives. Coastal towns in Somalia profit economically from piracy proceeds and so they have little reason to participate in anti-piracy operations. The government of Somalia has lost full oversight over the numerous maritime regions where pirates are running and are unable to respond with piracy, law enforcement, or any military activity to counter the same.

Nations have encountered challenges that have been exacerbated by the limited interpretation of Piracy in international law. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS”), the global authority for dealing with maritime disputes, describes piracy as :

“Piracy” consists of any of the following acts: 

(a) any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, and directed: 

1. on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft; 
2. against a ship, aircraft, person or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any state; 

(b) any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an aircraft with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft; 

 (c) any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in subparagraph (a) or (b)

The definition provided under UNCLOS has been considered to be more inclined towards customary international law. It gives a narrow interpretation of the crime of piracy in the following way.

Firstly, piracy has to occur in the high seas. If Somali pirates hijack a vessel in Somalia’s territorial waters, the attack will not count as piracy under UNCLOS. Therefore, although patrolling nations can be permitted to access territorial waters of Somalia in order to deter pirate attacks, if attacks take place in those waters, they would anyway not be considered attacks of piracy under International Law.

Secondly, an attack by pirates must include two vessels: a victim and an aggressor’s vessel. This could be problematic in situations where pirates try to board the victim’s vessel at its last port of entry, and then, later on, hijack the boat in the high seas. In this case, even though the hijacking would almost resemble piracy, it won’t be considered piracy.

Thirdly, it is necessary to commit the act of piracy for private purposes. If pirates happened to be related to a political cause or whether they were acting on behalf of a state agency, their acts would not count as piracy under international law.

Apart from the loopholes prevalent within the statute, a major issue is the applicability of the statute itself. The Convention (UNCLOS) is veiled in soft legal language. The implementation of the law relies on the member states. In other words, the law has no legally binding consequences.

A lot of nations have tied up with regional partners like Kenya, Seychelles, and Mauritius and have tried to capture and prosecute the pirates in the courts of these regional partner countries. In addition, the U.N. has also established a Piracy Contact Group, a group of state representatives that would meet several times a year and would work to find solutions to the piracy crisis in Somalia. The UN Report also recommended the creation of a Somali extraterritorial tribunal to be developed in neighboring Tanzania that would strictly apply Somali law but, for apparent security purposes, would be headquartered outside Somalia. Although this approach initially seemed appealing, it was met with opposition from Somalian people and hence, it couldn’t be implemented.

Major maritime nations need to support and deliberate to develop a wider view of UNCLOS and customary law, at the same time establish that international law does not explicitly preclude capturing states from sending pirates to third parties for trial, or by depending on certain agreements, such as the  Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation and other anti-terrorism treaties, which do not limit capturing states from initiating trial in their own courts. The most optimal solution, for now, would be to proliferate patrols in the Indian Ocean and to capture the pirates and prosecute them in the courts of the regional partners, in return of which these partners could receive monetary assistance from these nations. At the end of the day, Maritime Nations need to make sure that these pirates don’t become hostis humani generis of the modern-day.

Hriti Parekh is an undergraduate law student at Hidayatullah National Law University (HNLU), Raipur, India.

Suggested citation: Hriti Parekh, Somalian Pirates and the Law of the Sea: International Law in Crisis, JURIST – Student Commentary, October 7, 2020, https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2020/10/hriti-parekh-somalia-piracy/

Opinions expressed in JURIST Commentary are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JURIST's editors, staff, donors or the University of Pittsburgh.

Study: How piracy can unravel company profits in product bundling

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS

Determining whether the practice of product bundling — such as combining cable TV channels into packages or computer software programs into software suites — is profitable in the presence of piracy is important to businesses as they formulate pricing strategies.

Piracy — the unauthorized use or reproduction of another’s work — has become more pervasive because consumers often don’t want to pay for an entire bundle of items when they are only interested in a small selection. In a new study published online Aug. 26 and in the Volume 39, Issue 3 print edition of the Journal of Management Information Systems, a researcher from The University of Texas at Dallas and his colleagues examined this issue and concluded that bundling actually abets piracy and that the loss of profits from piracy is not offset by the additional income from selling bundled information goods.

Dr. Atanu Lahiri, associate professor of information systems in the Naveen Jindal School of Management and corresponding author of the study, said bundling is usually effective for zero-marginal-cost products, which are those that can be reproduced at no cost.

“For example, producing a movie costs money, but creating a copy does not cost anything,” Lahiri said. “There is no additional cost to the producer or seller if one additional consumer watches it. The same is true for software and other information products. So, naturally, bundling is quite appealing to sellers of information goods.”

For manufacturers, the primary benefit of bundling is that it reduces the effective demand elasticity, or how consumers’ willingness to pay for goods and services changes based on the price. A reduced elasticity increases the pricing power of the seller when there is no piracy, Lahiri explained.

“The question is: What happens when piracy is also an issue?” he said. “Can bundling encourage piracy to a point where the profit loss from piracy more than wipes out the benefits from reduced elasticity?”

Piracy is widespread because technology makes it easy to make illegal copies and distribute them, Lahiri said.

For example, the penultimate season of the TV series “Game of Thrones” was pirated more than 1 billion times, according to a 2017 report by the anti-piracy analyst firm MUSO.

“Consumers’ frustrations become obvious if we consider ‘Game of Thrones,’” Lahiri said. “To watch it, you must pay for an HBO subscription package that includes access to a variety of programming, including shows that you may not be willing or have the time to watch. Many netizens and bloggers believe that this pushes consumers toward piracy since consumers are often not interested in paying for programming they do not intend to watch.”

The software, television, film and music industries each lose tens of billions of dollars in profit every year because of piracy, Lahiri said, and as network bandwidth and digital storage become cheaper, piracy gets worse.

To explore the issue of bundling zero-marginal-cost goods, the researchers began with a model in which there was no pirating. They found that bundling is more profitable than separate selling in this case.

When they incorporated piracy into the analysis, however, they found that in cases in which the pirated product is a close substitute for its legal counterpart, bundling is unlikely to be the best strategy.

“If pirated content is just as good as the legal counterpart in terms of quality, piracy is highly attractive to consumers,” Lahiri said. “Instead of purchasing the bundle, some consumers will likely resort to piracy; in particular, they will selectively pirate the product they are interested in while ignoring the others in the bundle. Such piracy can, indeed, make bundling unprofitable.”

In general, mixed bundling — the strategy of offering a bundle alongside individual products — is superior to pure bundling. The researchers found, however, that in the presence of piracy, mixed bundling is not necessarily a preferable strategy either.

The researchers also considered that a fraction of the consumer market could behave ethically and refrain from illegal consumption. Even in this setting, their findings hold true.

Manufacturers of information goods should reassess the efficacy of bundling, particularly in markets where piracy is a serious concern, Lahiri said.

“Unless a manufacturer can find a way to sufficiently degrade the perceived quality of illegal alternatives to its products, it should refrain from bundling,” the authors concluded.

Dr. Chen Jin from the National University of Singapore, and Dr. Chenguang (Allen) Wu from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, are co-authors of the study.

---

JOURNAL

Journal of Management Information Systems

DOI

10.1080/07421222.2022.2096543 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Piracy and Bundling of Information Goods

 

Op-Ed: Somali Pirates Are Back, But a Full-Scale Return is Unlikely

The hijacked Iranian fishing vessel Al Meraj 1 (EUNAVFOR)

PUBLISHED DEC 17, 2023 8:03 PM BY PETER VIGGO JAKOBSEN AND TROELS BURCHALL HENNINGSEN

 

 

An Iranian fishing vessel, Almeraj 1, was reportedly hijacked by Somali pirates in November 2023. According to media reports, the pirates demanded US$400,000 in ransom and threatened to use the Iranian ship for additional hijackings if the payment was not made.

Two days later, other Somali pirates hijacked a tanker, Central Park, off the Yemeni coast. The tanker sent a distress signal during the attack. Forces from a nearby American warship captured the pirates as they tried to flee in a small boat.

The two attacks have led the Somali government to call for greater international support to deter a resurgence of piracy in the Horn of Africa. Similar fears that Somali piracy was on the rebound surfaced after five previous attacks in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.

We have been studying the rise and fall of Somali piracy, and have tracked the problem for years. We do not regard a major rise in Somali piracy as likely.

Following previous threats, local authorities, experts and organizations tracking piracy globally warned that Somali pirates retained the capacity to launch attacks. This is also the current assessment of the International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Centre, which acts to suppress piracy and armed robbery at sea.

The concern is not surprising.

Somali piracy was a major threat to the region and the world economy at its height in 2011. That year alone, Somali pirates carried out 212 attacks. The World Bank estimated that these cost the world economy US$18 billion.

Read more: Somali piracy, once an unsolvable security threat, has almost completely stopped. Here's why

In a recent analysis, we concluded that a range of anti-piracy measures had put a stop to Somali piracy. The measures fall into four main categories:

1. anti-piracy naval operations by the world’s most capable navies
2. costly self-protection measures, including the use of armed guards, by most flag states and shipping owners
3. a legal toolbox enabling pirate prosecution and imprisonment
4. capacity-building and the ability to imprison pirates regionally and in Somalia.

Anti-piracy measures

These measures remain largely in place.

Measure 1: The size of anti-piracy naval operations may have shrunk but some international forces remain active. Nato – an intergovernmental military alliance between 29 European and two North American member states – terminated its anti-piracy mission in 2016. However, the European Union retains its mission, as does a US-led coalition. Together they seek to suppress piracy outside the territorial waters of Somalia and other coastal states in the region. In addition, independent deployers like China have warships on patrol.

Measure 2: Most commercial ships sailing through the Gulf of Aden, the Somali basin and the Indian Ocean follow many of the self-protection measures recommended by flag states and the main maritime industry organisations. While the number of ships carrying armed guards has dropped considerably, most commercial ships report to the maritime security centres, follow the recommended transit corridor protected by international naval forces and join group transits.

Measure 3: The legal toolbox and the post-trial transfer system making it possible to prosecute pirates and imprison them in Somalia remains in place. This makes jail the most likely destination for the five pirates recently apprehended by US forces following their hijacking of Central Park. Successful prosecution and imprisonment would signal to other pirates that piracy remains an unprofitable undertaking off the Somali coast.

Measure 4: International efforts continue to increase the capacity of Somalia and other regional states to patrol their national waters. The EU’s capacity building mission in Somalia, for instance, still supports Somalia’s maritime security sector. It seeks to strengthen the sector’s capacity to deter, capture and prosecute pirates. The successful operations undertaken by the Puntland Maritime Police Force – including securing the release of hostages – indicate that these efforts are paying off.

These anti-piracy measures continue to be implemented by a broad coalition of state and private actors. They include states from outside the region, regional nations, Somali authorities and the international shipping industry. As long as these actors continue to invest in maintaining these measures, Somali piracy will remain unprofitable.

High risks, few rewards

It remains to be seen if the ransom demand for the Iranian fishing vessel Almeraj 1 will succeed. However, pirates don’t appear to have made any money from any of the other five attacks launched in the 2017-2023 period. We haven’t been able to ascertain if any ransom was paid to secure the release of a Panama-flagged ship captured in August 2020. In the other four instances, the attacks either failed or didn’t result in ransom payments.

Even if the US$400,000 ransom demand succeeds, it doesn’t alter the overall conclusion that piracy off the Somali coast remains a high-risk undertaking with a low probability of success. This suggests that a major increase in Somali piracy is highly unlikely.

If it did happen, though, it would be easy for international naval forces and the shipping industry to reduce the prospects of success by stepping up naval patrols and reintroducing armed guards.

Peter Viggo Jakobsen and Troels Burchall Henningsen are both associate professors at the Royal Danish Defence College.

#PIRACY; PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL

Crew Reported Kidnapped in New Incident in Gulf of Guinea

(file photo)

PUBLISHED DEC 13, 2021 7:31 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

After a seeming lull in attacks of merchant ships in the Gulf of Guinea with the increased international presence in the region, a new attack with a kidnapping was reported today in the same vicinity of other attacks in the region off Equatorial Guinea. Alerts have gone out for the potential of further piracy activity in the region.

While the details remain scarce at this moment, security consultants Dryad International is reporting that it believed six crew members have been abducted in an incident in the same place where another vessel was involved in another kidnapping incident in late October. The monitoring operation MDAT-GoG first reported a suspicious approach after midnight saying that a skiff was spotted with 12 individuals aboard. This was happening in the anchorage area near the port of Owendo in Gabon. This prompted MDAT-GoG to issue a warning for “an increased high risk of piracy activity for the next 24 to 48 hours.”

Dryad reported that six crew members were abducted although some set the number as high as nine crew from a containership in the same area that the OSV Montet Tide was the target of an assault on October 25. The offshore supply vessel managed by Tidewater was boarded and three crew members were reported taken in the previous incident that took place hours before pirates attempted an incident with an MSC containership. The Russian Navy took credit for chasing away the boarders on the MSC Lucia before they could abduct any crew members and then together the vessel were seen proceeding to the site of the Monet Tide.

Today's incident happened about 35 nautical miles away from the October reports, MDAT-GoG reported that the vessel had been boarded but was secured. They also said that Gabon has dispatched forces to the area. In later reporting, the Danish frigate operating in the area said that it had sent its helicopter to the area and spotted the skiff but was unable to stop it after it entered territorial waters apparently heading toward the Niger Delta region. The Danes boarded the containership providing assistance including searching for unaccounted for crew members leading to the current confusion on the exact number kidnapped. The Danish frigate is also providing medical care for one crew member from the containership that was wounded in the confrontation with the pirates.

Dryad tallies 2021 assaults on vessels at 10 with a total of 76 individuals believed to have been kidnapped. Most of those, however, were early in 2021 before the increased efforts in recent months by the international forces.

After the incident in which a Danish frigate intercepted a skiff and returned fire killing four suspected pirates, Dryad had cautioned that it was unlikely to immediately affect the pirate attacks. The European Community Shipowners’ Association had cautioned that the threat remained high and called for additional international efforts to protect merchant ships.

Note: An earlier version of the report indicated that the OSV had been the target of the attack, but today's incident appears to have only involved the crew members from the containership with three additional people being from the prior attack on the OSV.

Danish Prosecutors Seek to Bring Gulf of Guinea Pirates Home for Trial

Esbern Snare in the Gulf of Guinea (Anders Fridberg / Danish Armed Forces)

PUBLISHED DEC 9, 2021 8:08 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

Danish prosecutors are looking for options to bring four captured pirates from the Gulf of Guinea to Denmark to face justice, and they are even examining the possibility of chartering a vessel to ship them all the way north. 

On November 24, the Danish frigate Esbern Snare was on an antipiracy patrol in the Gulf of Guinea when her crew spotted a suspicious skiff in international waters. The crew launched a helicopter to investigate. The helicopter crew spotted equipment associated with piracy in the boat, including ladders, so the Snare gave pursuit and launched a boat with a boarding party. The suspected pirate skiff did not stop when ordered, so the Danish forces fired customary warning shots. In response, the skiff's occupants opened fire on the helicopter and the boarding party, putting seven holes in the Esbern Snare's launch.

The Danish forces returned fire, killing four of the skiff's occupants. One more individual went over the side and is unaccounted for, and four suspects were captured, including one with severe injuries to his leg. (The limb was later amputated by Snare's medical team.)

A Danish court has granted prosecutors' request to hold the survivors in custody in absentia. With an extension, Danish officials have until December 22 to bring the suspects before the court for trial. That would be a simple matter if the arrest had occurred in the Baltic, but the case is complicated by the Esbern Snare's location. Nearby West African states do not have legal arrangements in place for extradition by plane, nor could they provide certainty of local criminal prosecution under their own laws. 

"[Bringing them] home is a big logistical and diplomatic task. It has also been investigated whether you can charter a ship and sail them home, but there are logistical and administrative challenges with that," said special prosecutor Karen Moestrup Jensen, according to Danish outlet DR. 

If the suspected pirates are tried in a Danish court, their appointed attorney plans to argue that they shot at Danish forces in self defense - only after the Esbern Snare's helicopter crew fired the first warning shots. 

Danish Anti-Piracy Action Jolts Gulf of Guinea Maritime Leaders

The Danish frigate Esbern Snare in the Gulf of Guinea (Anders Fridberg / Danish Armed Forces)

PUBLISHED DEC 5, 2021 9:03 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

An intense debate has erupted following the recent deployment of a Danish frigate on an anti-piracy patrol in Gulf of Guinea, which resulted in the death of four pirates and the capture of another four.

West African defense analysts view the incident as a defining moment in the evolving maritime security situation in the Gulf of Guinea. This is the first time a foreign navy has resorted to lethal force in dealing with pirates in the region.

The operation happened 25 to 30 nautical miles south of Nigeria’s territorial boundary. Several international shipping associations have lauded the Danes’ response to a potential piracy activity; however, the action received a mixed reaction within some West African nations.

The Nigerian Maritime Law Association (NMLA) was the first to raise concerns over the incidence. According to a Nigerian newspaper Punch, NMLA’s leadership called for an independent inquiry that would look into the precise location of the incident in order to preserve Nigeria’s sovereignty.

“The Association supports all efforts to rid the Gulf of Guinea of piracy, maritime offences and all forms of criminality. It is concerned, however, about the sanctity of Nigeria’s sovereignty, application of the rule of law and respect of protocols of engagement with regard to the instant incident, and the emerging security regime in the Gulf of Guinea,” read the statement by NMLA.

Dr. Ifesinachi Okafar-Yarwood, a leading maritime security expert in the Gulf of Guinea, questions whether the Danish intervention may influence the nature of piracy attacks in future. “Could this see the increase in violence, as was the case in Somalia, which will justify a push for a Somalia styled response?” asks Dr. Okafor.

Amidst the debate over the role of international navies in anti-piracy operations, the region’s local governments must agree to face some realities, which may impede their efforts to stabilize the region.

Days before the Danish incidence happened, Amb. Florentina Ukonga, the Executive Secretary of the Angola-based Gulf of Guinea Commission (GGC), lamented that her organization consistently experienced lack of political commitment from leaders of the member countries. Amb. Ukonga was addressing participants in a virtual seminar held late last month as a prelude to Lagos International Maritime Week 2021.

Among other challenges, she noted the conflicting laws on security and safety at sea in the GGC countries.

“For instance, some countries do not have piracy laws; when pirates are caught, they are brought to the shores and let-off. But we do not want that to happen again. Nigeria has gotten an Act, the Suppression of Piracy Act of 2019, and we are proposing a code of conduct which should bind criminals when caught,” said Amb. Ukonga.

Dr. Dakuku Peterside, the immediate former Director of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), is another Gulf of Guinea maritime expert who has been pressing for a local solution to the region’s insecurity.

In March, a week after Denmark resolved to send a frigate to patrol the Gulf of Guinea, Dakuku penned an emotional letter in Nigeria’s Premium Newspaper saying that continued governance dysfunction in the Gulf of Guinea would have far-reaching implications to the status, stature and sovereignty of West African nations. According to Dr.Dakuku, this would be most pronounced for Nigeria, the largest economy in the jurisdiction.

“When small countries like Denmark provide security to Gulf of Guinea, what does that say about Nigeria’s image as Africa’s economic giant?,” asked Dr. Dakuku. :Nigeria built a strong reputation as a regional power within West Africa in the recent past. But with the current spate of insecurity and piracy, this reputation is gradually fading away. It is the high time Nigeria worked collaboratively with sister nations around the Gulf of Guinea to provide adequate security for the maritime sector.”

U.N. Security Council Explores Ending Somalia Anti-Piracy Resolution

U.N. Security Council reauthorized anti-piracy efforts for only three months off Somalia (Jason R Zalasky/US Navy file photo)

PUBLISHED DEC 10, 2021 4:42 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

The U.N. Security Council appears to be preparing to officially bring to a close the more than a decade’s long mission for international naval forces fighting piracy off the Somali Coast in East Africa. The Council voted last week to only reauthorize the mission for three months, while cautioning that proper mechanisms needed to be in place to ensure that there would not be a resurgence in activity.

Recognizing the steady decline in attacks and hijackings since 2011 and saying although piracy off the coast of Somalia has been “repressed,” Security Council members however said that the ongoing threat of resurgence remains. The U.N. adopted its first resolution to fight Somali piracy nearly 15 years ago, with the European Union, U.S., and other naval forces launching their coordinated efforts in the region in December 2008. The Security Council has continued to reauthorize the mission annually despite the decline in activities. In debating the new resolution, the Security Council acknowledged that “there has been no successful hijackings for ransom reported since March 2017” commending the broad naval coalition and efforts of the African Union for their counter-piracy activities. 

Somali representatives speaking before the Security Council also highlighted the success of the efforts saying that they believed the time had come to end the U.N. efforts and restore sovereignty to their waters. The Associated Press reported that Somalia’s U.N. Ambassador Abukar Dahir Osman told the council, “We believe that the Security Council resolutions on piracy and armed robbery off the coast of Somalia have successfully achieved its intended objective.”

Permanent members of the Security Council, however, spoke out regarding the dangers and saying that the mission remains a critical deterrent. The United States, which sponsored this year’s resolution, objected to efforts to end the resolution while France spoke of the potential “security vacuum,” saying it believed three months did not provide sufficient time to ensure a long-term structure to maintain stability in the region. 

After negotiations between Somalia, the United States, and other council members, the resolution authorized for a further three-month period states and regional organizations cooperating with Somali authorities, to fight against piracy and armed robbery at sea off Somalia. The council called upon all states to “take appropriate actions…to prevent the illicit financing of acts of piracy and the laundering of its proceeds…[and] to criminalize piracy under their domestic law.”

The ambassadors said that investigations and prosecutions must continue for all who “plan, organize, illicitly finance or profit from pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia,” while also calling on Somalia to bring to justice those using Somali territory to launch the attacks. Among the efforts that the Security Council called for from Somalis is to put in place mechanisms to safely return effects seized by pirates and to patrol the coastal waters to prevent and suppress future acts of armed robbery at sea.

The Security Council said it expects to continue the discussions with Somalia and will also be looking for further resolution with the African Union to ensure that the long-term structure is in place for the stability of the region. Somalia, for its part, is proposing bilateral agreements starting in 2022 to replace the broader U.N. Security Council resolutions.

UN: Despite Lull in Attacks, Somali Pirate Threat is Still Real

Somali pirates depart a hijacked merchant ship, 2008 (USN)

PUBLISHED DEC 6, 2021 3:42 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

The United Nations has adopted a resolution for continuous vigilance against threats of maritime piracy and armed robbery on the coast of Somalia. Piracy networks remain active despite long-running suppression efforts.

Despite the infrequency of attacks in the region and the reduction of the designated High Risk Area (HRA) in August, a UN Secretary General report on the situation suggests that threats remain along the Indian Ocean coastline because pirate cells are still active.

In early November, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution condemning piracy and armed robbery at sea off the Somali coast and underscored that it exacerbates instability by introducing “illicit cash that fuels crime, corruption and terrorism.” The Council said that investigations and prosecutions must continue for all who “plan, organize, illicitly finance or profit from pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia.”

The UN Secretary-General’s latest report on the piracy situation in Somalia illustrates that joint counter-piracy efforts have resulted in a steady decline in attacks and hijackings since 2011, but notes that threats remain real. 

The report - which covers the period from November 1 2020 to October 31 2021 - shows that no incidents of piracy were reported in the regional waters around the Somali coastline. However, an armed attack against a vessel occurred approximately three nautical miles off the coast of Middle Shabelle on August 13. Some member states also observed suspicious approaches towards merchant vessels in the region, indicating that progress achieved in combating piracy could be reversed if not consolidated.

“The continued absence of successful piracy attacks off the coast of Somalia demonstrates the effectiveness of the measures applied to combat piracy and armed robbery at sea . . .  Nevertheless, the continued presence of pirate action groups and networks remain of concern and highlight that piracy has yet to be fully eradicated,” stated the report.

Multiple threats to maritime security remain, with piracy networks having shifted their focus to less risky activities - like smuggling, which also requires attention from the international community.

Though maritime piracy is at near-zero levels along Somali shores, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing remains common. This crime is hindering multilateral efforts to foster sustainable fisheries.

Attacks attributed to Somali pirates peaked in 2011, when 237 incidents were recorded. The number fell dramatically to just 14 between 2015 and 2020, a drop widely regarded as a result of joint efforts to reduce crimes at sea.

 

The Surprising Link Between Piracy and COVID-19

Poverty, institutional incapacity and budget cuts fueled a surge in pandemic piracy

Suspected robbers under way in the Singapore Strait (Singapore IFC)

PUBLISHED OCT 1, 2023 10:22 AM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

By Jade Lindley and Dhiyaul Aulia Huda]

The Singapore Strait is experiencing a spike in maritime piracy attacks, with the incidence increasing from 12 attacks in 2019 to 38 in 2022, and an upwards trend continuing into 2023.

Southeast Asian waters are of geostrategic importance to global shipping routes, maritime trade, and networks of port hubs that are vital for state economics. The region’s archipelagic states, extensive coastlines, and congested chokepoints create ideal conditions for piracy.

What created the conditions for a surge in Singapore Strait piracy? Coinciding with the 2020–22 timeframe is of course the Covid-19 pandemic – a global health and economic crisis that triggered national restrictions affecting coastal and fishing communities in Southeast Asia. Further investigation into the link between the pandemic and increased piracy revealed heightened motivation to offend and decreased efforts to prevent attacks in known piracy hotspots.

Socio-economic pressures and poor economic conditions in coastal communities can motivate unemployed shipyard workers, seafarers and fishers into piracy. Similar to the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2008 global financial crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic included a shutdown of operations that caused a decrease in global trade and supply chain disruptions that led to Asia’s first regional economic contraction in decades. Among coastal communities, poverty, economic inequality, unemployment and commodity prices increased while households turned to crime, including piracy, to supplement their income.

Throughout the pandemic, the maritime sector was impacted by lockdowns, which increased financial vulnerability. The fishing sector experienced a decline in employment hours and decreased consumer demand. The economic welfare of fishers was damaged by decreased income opportunities due to fish market closures, including a decline in seafood exports by as much as 70 per cent during the early days of Covid-19. As such, approximately 2.7 million Indonesian fishers fell below the national poverty line.

Covid-19 also disrupted the operation of ports in Indonesia and Singapore, with governments adopting lockdown measures, travel restrictions and mandatory quarantine orders that reduced supply and restricted operations. Seafaring was particularly affected. The Seafarers Happiness Index for Q2 and Q3 of 2020 indicated that fatigue and financial woes impacted those both aboard vessels and ashore.

Why did the Singapore Strait experience a six-year high as a piracy hotspot in comparison to other parts of Southeast Asia, such as Indonesia? Our analysis found that the rise of piracy in the Singapore Strait can be attributed to three main causes. 

First, institutional capacity was weakened throughout Covid-19 due to the reallocation of resources from maritime security to healthcare and social security. This resulted in regional navies, coast guards and other maritime law enforcement agencies responsible for maritime security and surveillance operating with decreased funding, hampering regional maritime security efforts. Singapore reduced its defense budget in 2020, noting a 2.4 per cent reallocation of defense funds in part to deal with the pandemic.

Second, the Singapore Strait has a decentralized maritime security framework, as it is composed of the territorial waters of Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. The Singapore Strait’s maritime security architecture and surveillance, therefore, relies on cooperative mechanisms between the littoral states, which can result in sovereignty concerns and ambiguity over laws for the “right of hot pursuit”. Regime complexity in the governance of waters can result in regulatory gaps that hinder transnational approaches to combat piracy.

A final consideration is the geopolitical conditions that can result in the absence of capable guardianship. There was a decrease in maritime patrols in the Singapore Strait from December 2019, as the Indonesian navy was deployed to the South China Sea to advance Indonesia’s claim to the Natuna Sea against China’s assertions, creating an absence of maritime surveillance and increased opportunities for piracy in the Singapore Strait. Coastal surveillance was deprioritized as budget reallocations to combat Covid-19 resulted in decreased administrative capacity, causing weaknesses in law enforcement at sea. 

Examining Southeast Asia’s maritime piracy spike during Covid-19 helps shed light on how the pandemic contributed to piracy trends. Lessons learned can usefully inform future industry disruptions, such as supporting the livelihoods of fishing industry workers and maintaining capable guardianship to prevent future piracy surges.

This article is part of the ‘Blue Security’ project led by La Trobe Asia, University of Western Australia Defence and Security Institute, Griffith Asia Institute, UNSW Canberra and the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy and Defence Dialogue (AP4D). Views expressed are solely of its author/s and not representative of the Maritime Exchange, the Australian Government, or any collaboration partner country government.

For more on the subject, see: Dhiyaul Aulia Huda and Jade Lindley, (2023) ‘The Impact of Covid-19 on Maritime Piracy in the Singapore Strait: A Routine Activity Theory Analysis’, Blue Security.

This article appears courtesy of The Lowy Interpreter and may be found in its original form here. 

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.