Security Responses To Piracy In Southeast Asia West Africa And Somalia

The pirates of Somalia have shaken the maritime world. They have mounted what amounts to the most substantial non-state threat to the security of international shipping for half a century and perhaps longer. Piracy outbreaks have also occurred in Southeast Asia and West Africa. In each case the international community has responded differently. What lessons can be learned from three different approaches and is it possible to distill lessons of international best practice that can be applied in the Gulf of Aden and the northern Arabian Sea? This paper will examine how and why these three piracy outbreaks arose. It will describe in particular why the threat off Somalia grew so rapidly, why it declined and why the elements that made it successful remain in place. It will examine the responses of the international community, asking whether or not the response off Somalia might have been more effective if it had benefitted from stronger international backing and more coherent coordination. It will make the point that maritime security – the prevention and suppression of disorder at sea – must address many more issues than piracy as the theft of fish and the movement of drugs; weapons and people can often present greater risks. It will build on this point by looking at maritime security developments drawn from all three regions that may be employed advantageously in the Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea, before circling back to look at the fundamental problem, which is one of landward security and asking what initiatives have been taken to address this in Somalia and which ones appear to be yielding results. Finally, it will examine whether the way forward does lie with a unified global initiative, or if steps are better taken regionally calling upon extra-regional support as necessary.

This book combines multi-disciplinary ethnographic and theoretical approaches to examine piracy in Southeast Asia and the regional and international responses to this threat. During the piracy boom of the early to mid-2000s, the issue of piracy in Southeast Asia received substantial academic attention. Recent scholarship, however, has shifted the focus to Somali piracy and the resurgence of piracy in Southeast Asia has largely been neglected in the academic community. This volume seeks to remedy this gap in the current literature. The primary aim is to examine how piracy has evolved in Southeast Asia over the past ten years, to address why piracy has re-emerged as a security threat, to evaluate efforts at maintaining security in regional waters, and to offer an analysis of what might be expected in the next decade. The contributions are drawn from academics, policy makers, and military officers, covering a range of disciplines including international relations, socio-cultural anthropology, security studies, history, law, and Asian studies. Taken together, the contributions in this volume provide a better understanding of contemporary piracy in Southeast Asia and suggest avenues to successfully combat piracy in this region. This book will be of much interest to students of maritime security, Asian politics, security studies, and international relations in general.

ÔA number of books dealing with piracy have been published in recent years. This book stands out by the breadth of its coverage, which, unusually and much to be welcomed, includes detailed consideration of both public and private law. The book is also notable for the quality and range of expertise of its contributors, who are not only leading experts in the field but a mixture of academic and practising lawyers.Õ Ð Robin Churchill, The University of Dundee, UK ÔPiracy once again is posing serious threats to international trade, navigation and, of course, to the safety of seafarers. This collection of outstanding essays by outstanding scholars and practitioners examines the background to the re-emergence of piracy in South Asia, East and West Africa and explores the complex legal and practical challenges which crafting effective responses has presented. It is, quite simply, essential reading for anyone who is seriously interested in understanding and responding to one of the most pressing problems of our time.Õ Ð Malcolm Evans, University of Bristol, UK Modern Piracy is the first book to survey the law of maritime piracy from both public law and commercial law perspectives, as well as providing a contextual overview of piracy in major hotspots. Topics covered include issues of international law, law-enforcement cooperation, private armed security, ransoms, insurance and carriage of goods by sea. It provides a comprehensive introduction to the range of legal issues presented by the modern piracy menace and will be of interest to scholars and practitioners alike. Benefiting from a wide range of international expertise, this book will be of interest to public international law academics, government legal counsel, maritime commercial law practitioners, international relations academics as well as anyone interested in transnational organised crime.

Beyond providing a solid foundation for the analysis of maritime piracy in Southeast Asia, the book also gives considerable attention to the challenges of regional co-operation.

Maritime Piracy is now a pressing global issue, and this work seeks to provide a concise and informative introduction to the area. Never truly having receded into a romanticized past, seaborne banditry’s rapid growth was stimulated by low risks and increasingly high rewards. Currently, obsolete, incomplete and complicating structures and norms of governance, together with advances in technology, enable a lucrative business model for pirates, as they effectively operate with impunity and claim increasing ransoms. Beginning with an overview and historical development of piracy and the relevant maritime governance structures, this work progresses to examine how 20th century shifts in global governance norms and structures eventually left the high seas open for predatory attacks on one of the worlds fastest growing and essential industries. Moving through contemporary debates about how to best combat piracy, the work concludes that the solution to a chronic global problem requires a long-term, holistic, and inclusive approach. Examining militaristic, legalist and humanitarian strategies and offering a critical evaluation of the various problems they bring, this work will be of great interest to all students and scholars of international law, international organizations and maritime security.

The recent surge in piracy attacks off the coast of Somalia has triggered an international response which is unprecedented in terms of the number of actors involved. The International Response to Somali Piracy presents a comprehensive treatment of the international response to Somali piracy, exploring current initiatives to counter the piracy threat, both operationally and legally. Moreover, the book analyzes the regional and broader international context within which these initiatives are taken, and identifies the challenges and opportunities for international cooperation on fighting piracy at sea. This volume brings together experts from a great variety of different backgrounds and disciplines.

Piracy is a significant global threat to international sea-borne trade - the life-blood of modern industrial economies and vital for world economic survival. The pirates of today are constantly in the world's news media, preying on private and merchant shipping from small, high-speed vessels. Andrew Palmer here provides the historical background to the new piracy, its impact on the shipping and insurance industries and also considers the role of international bodies like the UN and the International Maritime Bureau, international law and the development of advanced naval and military measures. He shows how this 'new' piracy is rooted in the geopolitics and socio-economic conditions of the late-20th century where populations live on the margins and where weak or 'failed states' can encourage criminal activity and even international terrorism. Somalia is considered to be the nest of piracy, but hotspots include not only the Red Sea region, but also the whole Indian Ocean, West Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and the South China Seas.

This comprehensive survey of historical and contemporary issues related to maritime crime and piracy, with a special focus on Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, explains why piracy is a growing problem and how it affects security policy making in the United States. Here, piracy is defined as taking place on the high seas, while maritime crime takes place within a country’s territorial waters. Seaborne terrorism may occur in either one of these maritime zones. Maritime piracy can be divided into several categories, from pirates robbing a ship or its crew of petty items while at sea to taking a ship’s cargo and taking control of a vessel, reflagging it, and then using this captured ship to smuggle drugs, transport illegal immigrants, or conduct further acts of piracy. This is the most dangerous, not only because pirates can use a captured ship to carry out more raids, but also because they can use the ship’s identity papers to transport goods and weapons—potentially WMDs—into otherwise secure port areas. A special concern to the US is that the threat of piracy is growing most quickly in parts of the world—such as Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia—where both global trade is rapidly expanding and where international terrorist groups are actively functioning or have supporters. This geographical overlap suggests that the risk that pirates and terrorists may one day cooperate to strike at the US or an ally is most likely also on the rise. While many important African, South Asia, and Southeast Asian cases have received insufficient attention, many well-known historical piracy events stand in need of a reappraisal. This book integrates a number of multinational, multiregional, and historical cases of piracy, maritime crime, and seaborne terrorism to investigate whether piracy and other forms of maritime crime are becoming a major United States national security concern. It analyzes some of the most important cases, especially of the 19th, 20th, and early 21st centuries, as well as specific historical events. This allows to draw lessons as to what are the components of successful and unsuccessful piracy, common causes, the type of navy necessary to control it, and finally, possible military, political, and economic consequences. The book also discusses various types of cases, including parasitic, intrinsic, episodic, and opportunistic piracy. Specific cases are also evaluated in terms of the changing interpretations of international law and the recent reported growth rates of piracy, maritime crime, and seaborne terrorism. These findings are used to explore the impact of piracy on maritime security, in particular in Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia and their surrounding waters, which is where the majority of contemporary piracies and maritime crimes occur. Different methods of policing piracy and maritime crime are evaluated, including the viability of adopting greater Maritime Domain Awareness, which would require that all ships at sea—regardless of size or function—emit a signal beacon identifying their name, country of origin, and route. This combination of historical and modern day piracy and the many cases studied will provide readers with a broader understanding of maritime piracy.