Maritime piracy in East Africa.

• Author: Kraska, James
• Position: Report

More than 200 years ago, just as the United States was developing into a nation, corsair piracy challenged the ability of the country to conduct international trade throughout the Mediterranean Sea. While the Barbary threat was defeated, piracy continues to thrive and has become a feature of the contemporary age. Now, pirates operating off the Somali coast represent a destabilizing force in the region, and their attacks wreak havoc on world shipping markets at the very time the industry is suffering from economic collapse. Although piracy in the Horn of Africa has picked up throughout the past five years, 2008 was an especially remarkable year. In 2008, Somali pirates attacked more than one hundred vessels in the Gulf of Aden and western Indian Ocean. The audacity and scope of this piracy campaign is unprecedented in the modern age. Twenty thousand ships transit the Gulf of Aden annually and in 2007 about 6,500 tankers, carrying 12 percent of the world's daily oil supply, used the route. (1) This strategic area links trade between the east and west through the neighboring Strait of Bab el-Mandeb and into the Suez Canal. Piracy also occurs in Southeast Asia, off the African west coast and in the Caribbean, but the explosion in the number and scope of incidents in the Horn of Africa has galvanized world attention. Increasingly, Somali pirates seize and hold for ransom seafarers and valuable cargo. Among the take are thirty-three Russian armored tanks, 2 million barrels of crude oil valued at $100 million and tankers full of bulk chemicals. (2)

Piracy suppression includes collective efforts to deter and defeat the crime, from intercepting money transfers of ill-gotten ransoms to taking expeditionary military action in the coastal towns and villages located in the Puntland state of Somalia. On the operational end of the spectrum of efforts to repress piracy, a host of nations, including France, Denmark, Malaysia, India, Iran and Russia, have sent warships to the area. Combined Task Force 151, a multinational coalition that coordinates with the U.S. Navy's Fifth fleet, operates in the Horn of Africa to deter maritime terrorism and to promote the rule of law at sea. The European Union (EU) response includes deployment of naval vessels and surveillance planes to the area under Operation "Atalanta." Belgium, the UK, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden have all made contributions to this EU effort, with other nations also heeding the call. Japan is sending warships to the region, while China has already deployed two destroyers and a supply ship. However, the dramatic increase in the number and type of warships patrolling the Horn of Africa has been unsuccessful in stemming the threat of maritime piracy.

The seas are a unique legal milieu of flag, port and coastal state jurisdiction. Criminal offenses on the oceans frequently involve perpetrators, victims and wit nesses from multiple countries. Most of the oceans and airspace above the seas lie beyond any coastal state's jurisdiction, so cooperation with flag states-which typically exercise exclusive jurisdiction over their vessels at sea--is essential for effective action. This article focuses on the international laws and policies that connect the many nations, regional initiatives and international organizations in a common enterprise to repress maritime piracy. Developing workable legal and policy solutions provides the basis for collective action and can tie regional and global efforts into a more effective approach. (3) With such diverse and varied interests converging to address piracy, ensuring there is a unity of effort, effective communication, coordination and support for punishing perpetrators is critical. To successfully contain piracy, collective action should connect the efforts of private industry with those of governments and international organizations, and encompass political, military, financial and legal support. Collaborative confrontation of the problem of piracy in the Horn of Africa has begun to strengthen relationships among states in East Africa, and between them and maritime powers and shipping nations. Other global organizations, including the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in London, the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), now aggressively support piracy repression efforts.

First, we begin by briefly setting forth the threat of maritime piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the western Indian Ocean--the epicenter for piracy in the contemporary era. Second, we focus on the established international law governing counter-piracy repression efforts and consider how to further develop the law of maritime security treaties and partnerships. The Law of the Sea Convention is the bedrock of ocean law and policy, and piracy features prominently within the text. Since more than 155 countries are state parties to the convention, the Law of the Sea provides guidance on defining the problem of piracy and sets forth jurisdictional issues relating to the crime. Third, we turn toward international efforts to counter maritime piracy off the coast of Somalia and some related regional initiatives that serve as models for increasing maritime security in East Africa. In this regard, the IMO--a specialized agency of the United Nations--is the leading institution. More recently, at the prompting of the IMO Secretary-General, the UN Security Council has become engaged in the issue. Adopting four resolutions in less than a year, the Security Council took collective action against Somali piracy under chapter VII of the UN charter, authorizing states to take "all necessary measures" to suppress piracy in East Africa. (4) Two of the resolutions were informed by the findings of a special UN commission that met in Nairobi and delivered a report in November 2008. In addition, the most recent UN Security Council resolutions, adopted on 2 and 16 December 2008, endorsed the application of a general maritime security treaty--the 1988 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (SUA). Invoking the terms of the SUA Convention is a watershed because it will help states to work more closely together to extradite and prosecute criminal piracy gangs operating from the Somali shoreline.

THE THREAT OF MARITIME PIRACY IN EAST AFRICA

The threat of maritime piracy exists in the Horn of Africa as a result of the desperate situation in Somalia and the devastated political economy along the coastline. In an area where one attack can yield $10,000 for a working-level pirate, such criminal activities have flourished. It would take several years--perhaps considerably longer--for a Somali to earn that much money. As many as 1400 Somali men are now actively engaged in piracy, and illicit revenue is fueling a mini-construction boom along the coastline of the Puntland. (5) The annual haul for Somali pirates was estimated to be $30 million in 2008. (6) Money collected in ransom revenue exceeded the entire budget of the Puntland government for the year by a factor of three to one. (7) The number of piracy attacks in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia doubled from 2007 to 2008. (8) While attacks are declining in areas in which the littoral states and the international community have focused efforts, such as the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, the threat of maritime piracy exists worldwide and has rapidly increased in the waters of East Africa. (9) The crimes that have unfolded off the Somali coast, which include seizing seafarers from at least twenty-five countries as hostages, underscore that piracy in the Horn of Africa is a global security issue.

Before 1990, piracy was fairly insignificant, but a more structured form of maritime piracy emerged in the mid 1990s when armed groups patrolled the exclusive economic zone of Somalia, claiming they were the authorized "coast guard" charged with protecting Somalia's fishing resources. Somali pirates have become increasingly...