Piracy Research Articles

Prosecuting Maritime Piracy: Domestic Solutions to International Crimes

De juridische grondslag voor Staten om op internationaal niveau maritieme piraterij en andere illegale praktijken die verband houden met gewelddaden op zee te kunnen bestrijden, is afgeleid van verschillende verdragsrechtelijke, maar soms ook nog gewoonterechtelijke instrumenten. Hoewel het niet eenvoudig is voor de professional en al zeker niet voor de leek om daar zijn weg in te vinden, biedt dit boek toch een mooi en helder overzicht van de huidige stand van de wetgeving betreffende de bestrijding van maritieme piraterij. Het boek heeft een sterke juridische inslag en is zeer interessant voor advocaten, procureurs en maritieme juristen. De auteurs zijn gerespecteerde academici en beoefenaars van het recht met bewezen track records. Sommigen onder hen, zoals Eugene Kontorovich en Milena Sterio, zijn rechtsgeleerden die al sinds decennia bekend staan voor hun onderzoek op het gebied van de strijd tegen piraterij. Anderen hebben een ruime expertise ontwikkeld op het gebied van de vervolging van oorlogsmisdaden. Opmerkelijk is dat het boek nog steeds gemakkelijk leesbaar is voor de leek en de lezer hoeft dan ook geen specialistische voorkennis te hebben van het onderwerp. Een belangrijk kenmerk om te benadrukken, is de logische manier waarop de tekst is onderverdeeld in delen en vervolgens in hoofdstukken, wat een sterke houvast vormt voor de lezer die van het begin tot het einde door de tekst wil gaan, maar ook een goede leidraad biedt aan diegenen die liever rechtstreeks de tekst over een bepaalde kwestie in het boekwerk willen terugvinden. Het boek is uniek in dat opzicht dat het een van de eerste is waarvan de inhoud echt is toegespitst op de vervolging van piraten. Van gevangenneming over aanhouding tot en met de eigenlijke procesvoering en het uitvoeren van een eventuele gevangenisstraf, alle fasen van de vervolging van een individuele piraat komen aan bod en telkens worden de relevante juridische vraagstukken die in een bepaalde stand van het onderzoek of van de procesvoering kunnen optreden, uitgebreid en met grote zorgvuldigheid voor de lezer belicht. Het verzamelwerk verschilt dan ook van andere onlangs gepubliceerde werken die zich eerder richten op het juridisch kader met betrekking tot het misdrijf piraterij zelf of die het vervolgen van piraterij eerder belichten door de lens van het maritieme terrorisme in plaats van als een misdaad die kan worden vervolgd onder nationale anti-piraterij wetgeving.

Maritime Piracy off the Coast of Somalia: Effectiveness of the Control Measures and Challenges Facing Prosecution

Maritime piracy is an old concept, the history of which can be traced far way back since the time when the human being started using sea as a means of transport. Its criminality was firstly been considered by the customary international law even before codification of the same in 1958 Geneva Convention on the High Seas and later the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Somali piracy emerged in the 1990s, its narrative root causes, impact brought by it and the uniqueness of how it has been combated have moved the author to write this paper. The control measures of piracy off the coast of Somalia is comprised of International and local measures. The engagement of naval forces, combined task forces 150 and 151 and local reforms and pre-emptive measures and construction of a new naval base have contributed to the elimination of piracy activities off the coast of Somalia. This paper focused on whether these control measures are effective; the paper goes further on pointing out challenges facing prosecution. More over, the definition of maritime piracy, narrative root causes of piracy off the coast of Somalia, the impact brought by piracy off the coast of Somalia, the legal aspect of maritime piracy and its enforcement by the international community and lastly, conclusion and recommendations are the areas covered by this paper.

Failing and the Seven Seas? Somali Piracy in Global Perspective

This article reconciles the conflicting evidence on the relationship between governance and maritime piracy at the macro (state) and micro (sub-state) level using original data (2000–2011) and a study of piracy’s emergence in and around the Horn of Africa. It finds a consistent, positive relationship between state weakness and increased piracy production cross-nationally. However, Somali piracy belies the “anarchy as opportunity” mechanism implied by the large- N study. The pirate industry there received substantial support from local authorities, more consistent with a quadratic, “stability-enabled” argument regarding governance. I conclude that each is half-right. At the macro level, anarchy presents permissive conditions for simple banditry, but limits the potential for robust organized crime unless corruptible sub-state authorities exist and can be co-opted. Policy-wise, efficient pirate deterrence programs should concentrate on regions within failed states with this mix of characteristics. Methodologically, the results point to the limitations of existing metrics of state fragility and governance, and recommend that more nuanced measures be used.

TRANSNATIONAL ORGANISED CRIME IN INDONESIA: THE NEED FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

This article examines the growing infuence of transnational organised crime on the nations of South East Asia. Human trafficking, maritime piracy, terrorism and wildlife trafficking are major transnational crimes that cause significant harm to both individuals and national economies. This article examines the continuing domestic and international legislative, law enforcement and policy efforts of South East Asian nations to address transnational organised crime. it is concluded that to effectively counter transnational organised crime there is a need to employ international cooperation that is focused on addressing the unique factors of each crime.

The politicization of crime: electoral competition and the supply of maritime piracy in Indonesia

Electoral competition in weak institutional settings has been shown to increase criminal violence, in particular homicides. Electoral competitiveness, by virtue of threatening the ability of incumbents to maintain informal corruption agreements with criminal networks, is argued to increase crime because of violent competition among criminal groups over future influence. We link elections to maritime piracy, a form of criminal behavior that has increased substantially since the end of the Cold War and for which cross-national, temporally and spatially disaggregated data are available. We argue that electoral competition reinforces piracy because political changes threaten to disrupt collusive agreements between pirates and government authorities. Anticipating a disruption of criminal activity, pirates elevate their attack rates before political changes undermine these agreements. This disruption effect suggests that jurisdictions holding competitive electoral contests should experience more maritime piracy. We test our hypothesis on electoral competitiveness and piracy with subnational data for the 1999 and 2004 elections in Indonesia. Our results show that piracy escalates in proximity to highly competitive electoral districts.

The Pirate's Bed by N. Winstanley

Winstanley, Nicola. The Pirate's Bed. Illus. Matt James. Toronto: Tundra Books, 2015. Print.Morning Class"I see a smiling mouth [on the bed]! It's smiling!""Why is his toe red? He has boo boos on his feet.""I liked when the pirate found an island. I thought there was going to be a treasure!""I liked when the pirate got a new bed.""I liked when the boy had pirate dreams!""I'm glad the pirate wasn't eaten by a hammer shark.""I loved the palm trees.""I like when the pirate got a new bed.""How is that bed inside the water? Why it got eyes?""I liked everything about this book!""I liked the hammerhead shark."Afternoon Class"The boy has pirate dreams!""The girl dreams about dolphins, jellyfish, crabs and starfish!""I liked when the boat crashed in to the rocks...boom!""I like when the bird visited.""I like those hammerhead sharks!""I had a dream about a bad guys eye that looked like that!""I like when the bed's eye peeked out of the portal. How did it do that?"["The illustrator drew him like that!"]"I liked that pirate ship.""Why was there a monster [waves] grabbing the ship?""I am very, very scared of this book!""I like when the bed went back and forth, back and forth in the storm."Reviewers: Students from the Child Study Centre’s Junior Kindergarten Program in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta

War on Piracy: The conflation of Somali piracy with terrorism in discourse, tactic, and law

This article argues that since 2005, the global security discourse has confused maritime piracy off the Horn of Africa with terrorism. US and European policymakers and financiers have tapped a vulnerable public imaginary to exaggerate Somali pirates as ‘maritime terrorists’ linked to Al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda, driving the militarization and legal obfuscation of counter-piracy operations. And while Somali piracy has all but disappeared since 2013, international naval coalitions remain deployed in the Indian Ocean, which is still declared a war risk area. The discursive conflation of piracy and terrorism has thereby launched a tactical War on Piracy that mirrors the War on Terror. While pirates were active, this approach pushed them to become more daring and dangerous in response. Drawing on interviews with piracy stakeholders in Kenya, the article concludes that the tactical extension from counter-terrorism to counter-piracy is unresponsive to the origins, motives, and realities of Somali pirates. The article proposes a shift from military to developmental responses to countering and preventing piracy, with an emphasis on respecting local institutions of law enforcement and governance in Somalia.

Кибердипломатия: новые вызовы международного морского пиратства и методы информационного противоборства

Кибердипломатия: новые вызовы международного морского пиратства и методы информационного противоборства

Global Cooperation in Combating Sea Piracy: The Factors behind Global Piracy Trends

The rising number of sea travel is followed by the emerging number of sea crimes such as sea piracy and maritime terrorism. In recent two decades, the number of crimes on the sea have shown an alarming figure, where areas with a dense traffic of vessels such as the Gulf of Aden and Malacca Strait becomes the hot spots for piracy crime. The main reason behind the emerging of modern piracy is the increasing number of sea transported goods which create a significant opportunity to be a huge target of crime considering the drives behind piracy is financial reason. Some area of sea piracy took place commonly in Africa and Southeast Asia.

Global Cooperation in Combating Sea Piracy: The Factors behind Global Piracy Trends

The rising number of sea travel is followed by the emerging number of sea crimes such as sea piracy and maritime terrorism. In recent two decades, the number of crimes on the sea have shown an alarming figure, where areas with a dense traffic of vessels such as the Gulf of Aden and Malacca Strait becomes the hot spots for piracy crime. The main reason behind the emerging of modern piracy is the increasing number of sea transported goods which create a significant opportunity to be a huge target of crime considering the drives behind piracy is financial reason. Some area of sea piracy took place commonly in Africa and Southeast Asia.

Harmonisation of National Criminal Laws on Maritime Piracy: a Regulatory Proposal for the Crime of Piracy and its Penalties

This article outlines a regulatory proposal for the crime of piracy and its penalties. Following the introduction, Section 2 addresses the duty to cooperate in the repression of maritime piracy established in Article 100 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It also discusses the existence of an obligation to codify the crime of piracy and establish appropriate penalties, as part of the duty under Article 100. In this context, Section 4 is a de lege lata analysis of how national legislators have codified maritime piracy while Section 5 is a de lege ferenda proposal. Namely, Section 4 identifies some regulatory patterns in a wide number of jurisdictions that show to what extent there is a lack of harmonisation of domestic laws on maritime piracy. Section 5 discusses a regulatory proposal for the crime of piracy and its penalties.

A novel flexible model for piracy and robbery assessment of merchant ship operations

Maritime piracy and robbery can not only cause logistics chain disruption leading to economic consequences but also result in loss of lives, and short- and long-term health problems of seafarers and passengers. There is a justified need for further investigation in this area of paramount importance. This study analyses maritime piracy and robbery related incidents in terms of the major influencing factors such as ship characteristics and geographical locations. An analytical model incorporating Bayesian reasoning is proposed to estimate the likelihood of a ship being hijacked in the Western Indian or Eastern African region. The proposed model takes into account the characteristics of the ship, environment conditions and the maritime security measures in place in an integrated manner. Available data collected from the Global Integrated Shipping Information System (GISIS) together with expert judgement is used to develop and demonstrate the proposed model. This model can be used by maritime stakeholders to make cost-effective anti-piracy decisions in their operations under uncertainties. Discussions are given on industrial response to maritime piracy in order to minimize the risk to ships exposed to attacks from pirates. Further recommendations on how maritime security and piracy may be best addressed in terms of maritime security measures are outlined.

Impact of maritime security policies on the marine ecosystem

ABSTRACTThe maritime piracy issue drew significant global attention post-2012. The response from the major nations, even those geographically distant from the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), has been highly pro-active. Two important changes that are relevant to this paper are the increased deployment of multi-national naval forces for anti-piracy operations and also re-routing of the shipping lanes closer to the shores. The acoustic impact of these actions was completely ignored but their impact on the marine ecosystem needs to be reviewed. A rare stranding of a blue whale in June 2015 and a Bryde's whale in January 2016, off the west coast of India, are a possible manifestation of the degraded acoustic habitat due to high levels of low-frequency ambient noise in the region. The paper presents an investigative analysis of the two reported events and their correlation with acoustic habitat degradation which may be attributable to increased shipping in the region.

Predátorské časopisy, pirátství a nové modely publikování odborných článků

Přispěvek reaguje na zaznamenane absurdni dopady souvisejici s predatorskými casopisy, a to jak na urovni personalni, tak institucionalni. Je uveden zakladni postup, jak identifikovat predatorský casopis, respektive jak jej najit v Beallově seznamu. Strucně jsou komentovany konsekvence spojene s prvni studii v CR zabývajici se poctem clanků publikovaných v predatorských casopisech, ktere jsou výzkumnými institucemi vloženy do Rejstřiku informaci o výsledcich (RIV). Na zakladě toho je v CR přerozdělovana cast financnich prostředků pro vysoke skoly a výzkumne organizace. Dale jsou komentovany přistupy k financovani casopisů a publikovani clanků, zejmena se jedna o nový způsob placeni clenských poplatků uplatněný u publikacni platformy PeerJ. Na zavěr je diskutovana problematika dostupnosti odborných clanků vcetně s tim spojeným piratstvim. Popsaný vývoj, jehož jsme v soucasnosti svědky, přetvaři soucasný system vědy a s tim spojene publikovani odborných clanků a sdileni znalosti ve spolecnosti. Klicova slova: Beallův seznam, predatorsti vydavatele, vědecke casopisy, piratstvi, mega casopisy, otevřený přistup k publikovani. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18267/j.aip.87

Socioeconomic development and the risk of maritime piracy

Maritime piracy is a phenomenon with implications for international trade. It is usually of two types: armed robbery and hijacking of vessels. This paper uses general estimating equations (GEE) modelling to assess factors that determine the risk of piracy attacks. We consider the impact which the level of economic and institutional development in a number of regions may have on the frequency and success and failure rates of piracy attacks. We find that the frequency of piracy attacks is higher in regions where the quality of institutions is low and that most attacks take place in close proximity to a port. We also find that successful attacks are most likely in regions that are poor and have low military capacity. The success rate of the hijacking version of piracy has no effect on the probability of the armed robbery form of piracy. In the horn of Africa and South–East Asia, the probability of piracy attacks decreases during the month of Ramadan. While in the short-term, military responses may have a role to play, long-term sustainable policy requires that this is combined with enhancement of economic opportunity, governance and human capital development.

Decentralization, institutions, and maritime piracy

Piracy is an organized crime that is not politically motivated; however, piracy has been linked consistently to the political environment and the quality of national institutions. Provincial governance considerations and spatial aspects may influence the emergence and sustainability of piratical activities. Unlike the extant literature, we investigate the impact of fiscal and political decentralization on the incidence of piracy, while accounting for the average distance to the coast of the nearest region to the pirate incident. Fiscal decentralization generally serves as a deterrent to piracy, while political decentralization may encourage or inhibit piracy. Political decentralization may deter piracy by providing policy ownership to local officials. Alternatively, decentralization may foster piracy by inhibiting interjurisdictional competition or by separating local governance from the national seat of power. In general, enhanced institutional quality limits piracy at both national and regional levels.

Exploring the economic motivation of maritime piracy

This paper presents two hypotheses regarding the relationship between marine fisheries and maritime piracy. These hypotheses are based on the opportunity and willingness framework and describe how fish values and production can drive fishermen to engage in illegal activities, and the mechanisms that their capabilities and choices make available to them stipulate the forms that piracy takes when facing a declining fishing economy. The hypotheses are tested with the Maritime Piracy Data (MPD) using the negative binomial regression and the bivariate Poisson model. This study uses the instrumental variable approach to deal with endogeneity through two instruments: chlorophyll concentrations and temperature. The statistical analysis shows that unsophisticated piracy attacks are sensitive to fish production, but sophisticated attacks can be affected by both fish production and fish values and depend on the opportunity cost of existing fisheries and finding work in other industries.

Developing the Concept of Maritime Piracy: A Comparative Legal Analysis of International Law and Domestic Criminal Legislation

This article deals with the problem of combating international crime related to violence at sea. The question addressed is whether, according to public international law, all violent acts in the maritime domain, such as maritime piracy, drug trafficking, human trafficking and maritime terrorism, can be combined into one legal concept. In order to answer this question, this article takes the traditional notion of “piracy” in the sense used in the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention and explores the possibility of the notion being extended to encompass the other forms of crime to a concept of “universal maritime crime”. Jurisdictional issues, the difficulties of incorporating the resulting concept into domestic criminal legislation and challenges related to the prosecution of alleged criminals, such as due process and human rights issues, are also considered.

Suppressing maritime piracy in the Gulf of Guinea: the prospects and challenges of the regional players

ABSTRACTThe Gulf of Guinea (GoG) has emerged as the new hotspot of piracy and armed robbery against ships. This development is coming after a similar threat is declining off the East coast of Africa, thanks to all the naval powers that intervene in the region. The efforts to suppress piracy in the GoG have been led by regional players and supported by the international community. Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Benin among others have contributed notable efforts to suppress piracy in the GoG. The improvement in naval presence, maritime policing and target harden in the region have increased the number of intercepted, captured and killed pirates as well as foiled attacks, rescued victims and destroyed sanctuaries. Nevertheless, the available security presence remains insufficient to deter every attack, especially as the motivations for piracy persist in the region. This study examines the efforts committed against piracy in the GoG, some of the achievements so far and the challenges encountered, and suggests possible ways forward on a comparative basis with the record of headways in the East coast of Africa.

Are We There Yet? by Dan Santat (review)

Reviewed by: Are We There Yet? by Dan Santat Elizabeth Bush Santat, Dan Are We There Yet?; written and illus. by Dan Santat. Little, 2016 [40p] ISBN 978-0-316-19999-5 $17.99 Reviewed from galleys R 4-8 yrs A kid can go from full-out excitement to abject boredom before the car trip to Grandma’s is even underway. “But what happens,” the book asks, “when your brain becomes TOO bored?” Viewers turn the book to orient this question as the text wraps around the spread, and as time loses its meaning during the mind-numbing ride, the family makes its way deeper into the past: alongside a steam locomotive in the Wild West, perched on the plank of a pirate ship, at lance-point of an oncoming medieval jouster, parked next to the Egyptian pyramid construction zone, and into the age of dinosaurs. The kid in the car, now fully alert and amused, reverses the trajectory with a hasty game of dino fetch, propelling the family back to the future, but this time a little too far. They arrive at Grandma’s address, but it’s now the year 2059 and the house is gone. The parents, however, reassure their son that they know what they’re doing, and when he next opens his eyes, Grandma’s birthday party gets into full swing—replete with relatives so annoying that it must be time to hit the road again: “Can we go now?” Santat digs deep into his stockpile of illustrative tricks to manipulate time and space through clever page turns, comics style sequential frames, background fade outs, and a wealth of loony details to keep viewers scouring the scenes for giggle-worthy details. In fact there’s so much to see (including the bonus QR codes that decipher robot speech) that handing a copy to kids on their own road trip just might forestall the dreaded whine “Are we there yet?”—at least for a little while. Copyright © 2016 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois