Maritime Piracy

June 26, 2018   Reading Time: 8 minutes

Reading Time: 8 min read

Image Credit: Kyle Heller/ flickr

This LKI Explainer examines key aspects of maritime piracy. It will also consider options for Sri Lanka to further develop maritime security cooperation at the regional level, to combat piracy.

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Contents

1. What is Maritime Piracy?
2. Current Trends
3. Responses to Maritime Piracy
4. Opportunities for Sri Lanka
5. Key Readings

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1. What is Maritime Piracy?

• The legal definition of piracy can be found in Article 101¹ of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It states that piracy consists of ‘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 … on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft.’
• However, the limitation of the UNCLOS definition, of piracy to the “high seas”, i.e. international waters beyond the territorial waters of a state, does not allow for a more flexible and holistic approach towards the problem, given that most piracy does not occur² on the high seas.
• The 1988 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation³ (SUA Convention) expanded the recognised geographical scope of piracy to a state’s territorial waters. States can choose whether to apply UNCLOS or the SUA Convention in prosecuting piracy.

2. Current Trends

• The incidence of modern maritime piracy reached its highest levels around 2010/2011.⁴ Although it has since declined, it remains a major security threat.
• Piracy has recently been concentrated in East Africa, particularly around the Horn of Africa/Gulf of Aden. Rigorous anti-piracy action has led to a relative decline in that region⁵ but at the same time, there has been an upsurge in piracy in West Africa.
  • In 2016, there were 95 piracy incidents⁶ in West Africa, up from 54 in 2015.
  • In West Africa, piracy involving kidnap and ransom increased by nearly one-third⁷ from 2015 to 2016.
  • Oil tankers were the targets of pirates in nearly 40%⁸ of the incidents.
  • Unlike in the Gulf of Aden, the majority of incidents in West Africa involved armed pirates.⁹ – This indicates that they are better funded and organised than their Somali counterparts in East Africa.

• Piracy in Southeast Asia, meanwhile, has decreased significantly since 2015 due to increased patrolling and regional coordination.
  • Nevertheless, Southeast Asia had the highest recorded number of incidents¹⁰ of piracy in 2016 compared to all other regions (129).
  • Unlike in West Africa, most of the ships targeted by the Southeast Asian pirates were bulk carriers (43);¹¹ only about half as many tankers (23)¹² were targeted.
    
• While many factors explain the high incidence of piracy around the world, two major causes are poor environmental practices and weak governance.
  • Unsustainable use of resources, particularly over-fishing¹³ has deprived many coastal communities in piracy-prone regions of their traditional livelihoods, for example, in Somalia, dumping of toxic chemicals¹⁴ in the ocean has further contributed to the depletion of fish stocks.
  • Many of the countries where pirates operate suffer from serious governance issues. Some (like Somalia) lack a properly functioning government,¹⁵ whereas others (like Nigeria) suffer from widespread and ingrained corruption,¹⁶ and still others (like the Philippines) are challenged by militant separatist movements.¹⁷

3. Responses to Maritime Piracy

• There are two major ways of dealing with piracy: legal measures and security measures. Legal measures mostly focus on prosecution of piracy, i.e. what states do once they identify a pirate threat, while security measures focus on deterrence, i.e. monitoring and preventing individuals and communities from resorting to piracy.
• The UNCLOS treaty provides the legal framework for prosecuting piracy.
  • Article 105 of UNCLOS declares that states have universal jurisdiction on the high seas to seize a ship under the control of pirates, arrest the persons on board, and seize any property on board as well. Any persons arrested in such a manner would have to be tried under the laws of the country that makes the seizure.¹⁸
  • Article 111 also gives states a right of “hot pursuit”, i.e. their vessels can pursue a ship engaging in illegal activity (such as piracy) in their territorial waters into the high seas. They must cease once the pursued ship enters the territorial waters of another state.¹⁹ 
    • Nevertheless, a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions in 2008 against Somali piracy (beginning with Resolution 1816)²⁰ seemed to allow ships pursuing pirate ships to enter Somali territorial waters.
    • This right was intended to be specific to the Somali case and therefore not a basis for customary international law.
• Many navies face practical problems of how to prosecute pirates captured on the high seas, who cannot be easily transferred to their home jurisdictions.
  • To assist with this issue, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) developed a ‘piracy prosecution model.’²¹ Under this model, states bordering piracy hotspots set up transfer agreements with international anti-piracy taskforces operating in the region, to prosecute apprehended pirates apprehended by the taskforces.
• While such legal measures are important, cooperative security measures have been the primary driver of the decline in piracy in recent years.
• Anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden²² feature international naval task forces that patrol and escort merchant vessels, and seize any suspected pirate vessels. These include:
  • Combined Task Force 150, which operates broadly under the USA’s Operation Enduring Freedom (14-15 ships);²³
  • Combined Task Force 151, set up specifically for anti-piracy operations in 2009 (6 ships);²⁴ and
  • Operation Atalanta, operated by the EU (European Union) Naval Force (3-4 ships)²⁵.
  • Anti-piracy operations are also present in Southeast Asia.
    • Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines recently launched joint naval patrols.²⁶
    • Prior to this, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia participated in the Malacca Straits Patrols programme, which consisted of sea patrols, aerial patrols, and an intelligence exchange group.²⁷
  • Besides patrolling, countries are also combating piracy by strengthening their Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA).
    • MDA is defined by the International Maritime Organisation as ‘the effective understanding of any activity associated with the maritime environment that could impact security, safety, economy, or environment.’²⁸
    • This can be achieved through activities like patrolling, but also through radar, satellites, drones, buoys, and other forms of surveillance equipment.
• For MDA to be effective across a greater geographical area, countries must cooperate in sharing information. Sri Lanka, India, and the Maldives have signed a trilateral maritime security agreement that prioritises the enhancing of MDA.²⁹ In the broader Indian Ocean region, the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) recently released an action plan that proposes to build a ‘regional surveillance network … including sharing of data on maritime transportation systems.’³⁰
• Besides such national and international measures, the pirate threat has also prompted merchant vessels to hire private security teams to protect their vessels.
  • The cost of such contracted maritime security was the largest component of total costs of piracy in both East³¹ and West Africa³² in 2016. For example, in East Africa, USD 726.1 million³³ was spent on contracted maritime security compared to USD 228.4 million³⁴ respectively, on Navy security.

4. Opportunities for Sri Lanka

• Sri Lanka is currently part of several key regional initiatives to combat piracy, including the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combatting Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) and IORA.
• There is potential for Sri Lanka’s contribution to increase in the following ways:
  • Sri Lanka could leverage its position as Lead Coordinator³⁵ of IORA’s Working Group on Maritime Safety and Security to promote regional anti-piracy measures already included in the IORA Action Plan, such as the regional MDA surveillance network.
  • Sri Lanka could advocate to strengthen the trilateral agreement with India and the Maldives³⁶ to include activities such as joint patrolling.
  • Sri Lanka could also coordinate with the South Asian Regional Intelligence Coordination Centre³⁷ set up by the UNODC in Sri Lanka³⁸ to promote its ‘piracy prosecution model’ in the region.
  • Sri Lanka locally constructs the ‘Arrow’ class patrol boats,³⁹ which proved very effective in battles⁴⁰ against the naval wing of the Tamil Tigers during the country’s civil war. Having already sold nine such vessels⁴¹ to Nigeria, it could seek to export more to other states, and also share its know-how and experience⁴² in small boat operations with other regional navies.
  • In addition, Sri Lanka should look to promote public-private partnerships⁴³ to position itself as a logistical hub for maritime security.
  • Finally, Sri Lanka could provide sea marshal⁴⁴ (armed law enforcement officers who escort vessels to guard against piracy) services to commercial vessels transiting through its waters.

5. Key Readings

Oceans Beyond Piracy.2016. The State of Maritime Piracy 2016: Executive Summary. http://oceansbeyondpiracy.org/reports/sop/summary 

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.2018. Maritime Crime Programme – Indian Ocean. https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/piracy/indian-ocean-division.html

Cardiff University and University of Seychelles. Piracy-studies.org: the research portal for maritime security. http://piracy-studies.org/

Williams, P.R. and Pressly, L.2014. ‘Maritime Piracy: A Sustainable Global Solution.’ Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law. https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1035&context=jil

International Chamber of Commerce-Commercial Crime Services.2018. IMB Piracy Reporting Centre. https://www.icc-ccs.org/index.php/piracy-reporting-centre

Notes

¹ United Nations. 2017. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. [online] Accessed January 2018: http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/unclos_e.pdf

²Anyiam, H.I. 2014. ‘When Piracy is Just Armed Robbery’. The Maritime Executive [online]. Accessed February 2018: https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/When-Piracy-is-Just-Armed-Robbery-2014-07-19#gs.KwPqwwE

³ United Nations. 1988. Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation. [online] Accessed January 2018: http://www.un.org/en/sc/ctc/docs/conventions/Conv8.pdf

⁴ Statista. 2018. Number of pirate attacks against ships worldwide from 2009 to 2017. [online] Accessed February 2018:https://www.statista.com/statistics/266292/number-of-pirate-attacks-worldwide-since-2006/

⁵Sow, M. 2017. Figures of the Week: Piracy and Illegal Fishing in Somalia. Brookings Institution [online]. Accessed February 2018: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2017/04/12/figures-of-the-week-piracy-and-illegal-fishing-in-somalia/

⁶ Oceans Beyond Piracy. 2016. The State of Maritime Piracy 2016: Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships in West Africa 2016. [online] Accessed January 2018: http://oceansbeyondpiracy.org/reports/sop/west-africa

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ Oceans Beyond Piracy. 2016. The State of Maritime Piracy 2016: Piracy and Robbery Against Ships in Asia 2016. [online] Accessed January 2018: http://oceansbeyondpiracy.org/reports/sop/se-asia

¹¹ Ibid.

¹² Ibid.

¹³ Tharoor, I. 2009. How Somalia’s Fishermen Became Pirates. Time. [online] Accessed February 2018: http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1892376,00.html

¹⁴ Knaup, H. 2008. The Poor Fishermen of Somalia. Spiegel. [online] Accessed February 2018: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/prelude-to-piracy-the-poor-fishermen-of-somalia-a-594457.html

¹⁵ Ridout, T. A. n.d. Somalia is Not a State. The Huffington Post. [online] Accessed February 2018:https://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-a-ridout/somalia-is-not-a-state_b_894734.html

¹⁶ Okafor, U. 2014. The Nigerian Government Is a Greater Threat to its People Than Boko Haram. The Huffington Post. [online] Accessed February 2018: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/udoka-okafor/nigerian-government-corruption-_b_5686842.html

¹⁷ Council on Foreign Relations. 2009. Abu Sayyaf Group (Philippines, Islamist separatists). [online] Accessed February 2018:https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/abu-sayyaf-group-philippines-islamist-separatists

¹⁸ United Nations. (2017). United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. [online] Accessed January 2018: http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/unclos_e.pdf

¹⁹ Ibid.

²⁰United Nations. 2008. Security Council Condemns Acts of Piracy, Armed Robbery off Somalia’s Coast, Authorizes for Six Months ‘All Necessary Means’ to Repress Such Acts. United Nations Security Council Press Release [online]. Accessed February 2018: https://www.un.org/press/en/2008/sc9344.doc.htm

²¹ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. 2014. Maritime Crime Programme – Indian Ocean. [online] Accessed February 2018: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/piracy/indian-ocean-division.html

²² United Nations. 2017. Unanimously Adopting Resolution 2383 (2017), Security Council Renews Authorization for International Naval Forces to Fight Piracy off Coast of Somalia. [online] Accessed February 2018:https://www.un.org/press/en/2017/sc13058.doc.htm

²³ Combined Maritime Forces. 2018. CTF 150: Maritime Security. [online] Accessed February 2018: https://combinedmaritimeforces.com/ctf-150-maritime-security/

²⁴ Combined Maritime Forces. 2018. CTF 151: Counter Piracy. [online] Accessed February 2018: https://combinedmaritimeforces.com/ctf-151-counter-piracy/

²⁵ European Naval Force Somalia. 2017. European Naval Force Somalia Operation Atalanta. [online] Accessed February 2018: http://eunavfor.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2017May_Booklet-Eng.pdf

²⁶Chan, F. and Soeriaatmadja, W. 2017. ‘Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines launch joint operations in Sulu Sea to tackle terrorism, transnational crimes’. Straits Times [online]. Accessed February 2018: https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/indonesia-malaysia-and-philippines-launch-joint-operations-in-sulu-sea-to-tackle-terrorism

²⁷ Lean, C. K. S. 2016. CO16091 | The Malacca Strait Patrols: Finding Common Ground. S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. [online] Accessed February 2018:https://www.rsis.edu.sg/rsis-publication/rsis/co16091-the-malacca-strait-patrols-finding-common-ground/#.Wn0upVT1XdQ

²⁸ International Maritime Organisation. 2010. Amendments to the International Aeronautical and Maritime Search and Rescue (IAMSAR) Manual. [online] Accessed February 2018:http://www.imo.org/blast/blastDataHelper.asp?data_id=29093&filename=1367.pdf

²⁹Saberwal, A. 2016. Time to Revitalise and Expand the Trilateral Maritime Security Cooperation between India, Sri Lanka and Maldives. Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. [online] Accessed February 2018:https://idsa.in/idsacomments/trilateral-maritime-security-cooperation-india-sri-lanka-maldives_asaberwal_220316

³⁰Indian Ocean Rim Association. 2017. IORA Action Plan 2017-2021. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia. [online] Accessed February 2018:http://dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/Documents/iora-action-plan-2017-2021.pdf

³¹ Oceans Beyond Piracy. 2016. The State of Maritime Piracy 2016: Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships in East Africa 2016. [online] Accessed January 2018: http://oceansbeyondpiracy.org/reports/sop/east-africa

³² Oceans Beyond Piracy. 2016. The State of Maritime Piracy 2016: Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships in West Africa 2016. [online] Accessed January 2018: http://oceansbeyondpiracy.org/reports/sop/west-africa

³³ Oceans Beyond Piracy. 2016. The State of Maritime Piracy 2016: Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships in East Africa 2016. [online] Accessed January 2018: http://oceansbeyondpiracy.org/reports/sop/east-africa

³⁴ Oceans Beyond Piracy. 2016. The State of Maritime Piracy 2016: Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships in West Africa 2016. [online] Accessed January 2018: http://oceansbeyondpiracy.org/reports/sop/west-africa

³⁵Waidyatilake, B. 2017. Maintaining Momentum: Sri Lanka’s Strategy in the Indian Ocean Rim Association South Asian Voices. [online] Accessed February 2018:https://southasianvoices.org/maintaining-momentum-sri-lankas-strategy-iora/

³⁶ Saberwal, A. 2016. Time to Revitalise and Expand the Trilateral Maritime Security Cooperation between India, Sri Lanka and Maldives.

³⁷ Christopher, C. 2017. Intelligence Coordination Centre to combat transnational crime in South Asia. The Sunday Times. [online] Accessed February 2018: http://www.sundaytimes.lk/171119/news/intelligence-coordination-centre-to-combat-transnational-crime-in-south-asia-269351.html

³⁸ Thomas, K. C. 2017. Regional drug intelligence centre to be set up Facilitated by UNODC. Ceylon Today. [online] Accessed February 2018: http://www.ceylontoday.lk/print20170401CT20170630.php?id=34820

³⁹ Edirisinghe, R. 2008. Launching of 100th indigenous special designed fighting boat by the Sri Lanka Navy. The Asian Tribune. [online] Accessed February 2018: http://www.asiantribune.com/?q=node/13183

⁴⁰Povlock, P.A. 2011. ‘A Guerrilla War at Sea: The Sri Lankan Civil War’. Small Wars Journal [online}. Accessed February 2018: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a549049.pdf

⁴¹Defenceweb. 2016. Nigeria receives patrol boats from Sri Lanka. Defenceweb [online]. Accessed February 2018: http://www.defenceweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=43401%3Anigeria-receives-patrol-boats-from-sri-lanka&catid=51%3ASea&Itemid=106

⁴² Fish, T. 2014. Sri Lankan Navy is being re-shaped says Vice-Admiral Colambage. Re-printed in Thuppahi’s Blog from Jane’s Defence Weekly. [online] Accessed February 2018: https://thuppahi.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/sri-lankan-navy-is-being-re-shaped-says-vice-admiral-columbage/

⁴³ Ceylon Association of Shipping Agents. 2017. Importance of maritime security in journey to become a maritime hub. The Daily Mirror. [online] Accessed February 2018: http://www.dailymirror.lk/article/Importance-of-maritime-security-in-journey-to-become-a-maritime-hub-142522.html

⁴⁴ The Island. 2017. Navy Chief: Navy to increase sea marshals for foreign ships. [online] Accessed February 2018: http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=170546