Paying the pirate's price: do the economics of piracy demand the privatization of the sea?

• Author: de Rugy, Veronique
• Position: Columns

AT THE BEGINNING of April, after a vessel was captured off the Somali coast, the military liberated the crew by storming the boat and killing two of the pirates. While the crew was saved, the ship's captain was killed in the attack, leaving behind a wife and a 3-year old son.

That's not the story you heard? That's because you're not French. While the story of the Maersk Alabama and the Navy SEAL operation that freed its captain were gripping American attention, the French were focused on the drama unfolding upon the Tanit, a 40-foot sailboat on an around-the-world voyage. When it became clear that negotiations for the crew's release had come to an impasse, French commandos moved in.

The French government had warned the skipper not to proceed into the Gulf of Aden, where piracy has increased dramatically during the last four years. But the captain chose to ignore the advice. He apparently was chasing a dream to drop out of commercial society and would not be dissuaded.

Most piracy, by contrast, stems from very material dreams, on the part of both the pirates and the plundered. All affected parties are looking to make a living and constantly calculating the most efficient means to do so.

While tourists occasionally have fallen victim to piracy, most hostages are crew members on commercial ships. This is no surprise. According to a 2008 RAND study, the main factor behind the re-emergence of old-style piracy has been a massive increase in commercial maritime traffic. Combined with the large number of ports around the world, this growth has provided pirates with a wide range of tempting, high-payoff targets. And as more sea-borne commercial traffic passes through narrow and congested maritime chokepoints, the ships must reduce their speed to ensure safe passage, heightening their exposure to interception and attack.

No one has bested the 18th-century pirate Bartholomew Roberts' pithy summation of why piracy exists: "In an honest Service, there is thin Commons, low Wages, and hard Labour; in this, Plenty and Satiety, Pleasure and Ease, Liberty and Power; and who would not balance Creditor on this Side, when all the Hazard that is run for it, at worst, is only a sower Look or two at choaking. No, a merry Life and a short one shall be my Motto"

The time and place may have changed, but Roberts' reasoning still holds true. Like Roberts in the 18th century, Somali pirates have little to lose in the 21st. Their country is wracked by chaos and poverty...