Piracy Research Articles

Maritime piracy and armed robbery analysis in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore through the utilization of natural language processing

Maritime piracy and armed robbery analysis in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore through the utilization of natural language processing

Modernisasi Alat Utama Sistem Senjata TNI dalam Mendukung Tugas TNI AL

This study analyzes the modernization of TNI AL weaponry systems to support maritime defense tasks in Indonesian jurisdictional waters. Using the Analytic Network Process (ANP) method, the research identifies the challenges and obstacles faced, as well as determining modernization priorities. The ANP results show that modernizing the Indonesian Navy Warship (KRI) is the top priority, followed by the development of Fast Missile Boats (KCR), the modernization of the Maritime Air Defense System, and the procurement of new submarines. Additionally, the Indonesian Navy faces both conventional military threats, such as naval attacks from other countries, and asymmetric threats, including piracy and maritime terrorism. To address these threats, the Indonesian Navy needs to develop advanced technologies, including cyber security and monitoring technologies to prevent illegal activities at sea. The study also finds that modernization efforts face various obstacles, requiring the improvement of maintenance facilities and intensive training. The use of ANP and NVivo helps formulate an effective modernization strategy to enhance operational readiness and the maritime defense capabilities of the Indonesian Navy.

Towards a political ecology of piracy in the Age of Sail

ABSTRACT Although historians and archaeologists have been quick to point out the political and economic conditions that tend to foment sea piracy, less attention has been given to the ecology of ‘blue crimes’. This article offers an empirical synthesis of recent archaeological work on piratical sites from the Age of Sail (ca. 1570–1860) while drawing parallels to both ancient Mediterranean and contemporary sea piracy in order to highlight some common patterns and explore the broader potential of a political ecology framing. I argue that sea piracy is in part an effect of ecological conditions and in turn produces its own political and ecological effects. I also consider Graeber and Wengrow’s transhistorical argument about the ‘ecology of freedom’ as it applies to sea piracy.

A Natural Jewel Threatened by Maritime Insecurity in the Gulf of Guinea

The Gulf of Guinea, an area rich in natural beauty and natural resources such as oil, gas, and fisheries, faces serious threats from widespread maritime piracy activities. The region is an important economic center, but maritime insecurity threatens its economic stability and development. Numerous regional and international initiatives have been undertaken to enhance security in these waterways, such as the Nigerian government's "Deep Blue" project and collaboration with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The UN Security Council has also passed a resolution to address this threat. Despite this, challenges remain significant due to the high number of attacks and significant economic impact. Addressing this issue requires continued cooperation between countries in the Gulf of Guinea region and the international community to ensure security and sustainable exploration in this region​.

Addressing maritime security challenges through maritime domain awareness: a study of the role of the Information Fusion Centre-Indian Ocean Region

ABSTRACT In recent years, many non-traditional maritime safety and security threats viz. piracy, armed robberies at sea, maritime terrorism, human trafficking, drugs trafficking, illicit trafficking in wildlife, illegal deals in weapons, IUU fishing, dilapidation of ocean health and illegal exploitation of sea resources, etc. have emerged as real and serious challenges not only to the commercial shipping but also to the national security. A comprehensive response from the worldwide seafaring community is the need of the hour to tackle these maritime threats, both natural and man-made. India’s initiative of establishing the Information Fusion Centre-Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) in the year 2018 can be regarded as a significant step in dealing with the variety of maritime security challenges. Jointly managed and run by the Indian Navy and Coast Guard, the IFC-IOR fulfils the purpose of creating Maritime Domain Awareness on the issues pertaining to maritime safety and security. Protecting maritime interests and augmenting security in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) is indispensable for maintaining free navigation and overflight, unconstrained commerce and a free, open and UNCLOS-based regime in the IOR.

Geopolitics of the Horn of Africa: Arab Countries’ Stance on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, with Special Focus on the GCC Position

The Horn of Africa holds a strategic position, bordering on the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Indian Ocean, and the Nile region. The Bab al-Mandab Strait, which connects three continents – Asia, Africa, and Europe-lie within its ambit. Over the past decade, external powers have begun to take a heightened interest in this region. Consequently, security issues in this strategically vital area have become increasingly salient, and local conflicts, famines, the proliferation of terrorist groups and maritime piracy have all found their way onto wider regional and international agendas. The current conflict between Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt regarding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is of particular significance in this new scenario. This paper explores the position of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and the general Arab stance on the dispute. It is worth noting that despite the considerable efforts made by Egyptian diplomacy to establish a unified Arab position on the Renaissance Dam issue, there are significant differences among Arab countries in regard to the issue. At the level of the GCC countries, the United Arab Emirates adopts a relatively flexible and neutral position, sometimes positioning itself as a mediator between the conflicting parties. Conversely, Kuwait maintains a firm stance in support of the Egyptian-Sudanese position, considering water security for Egypt and Sudan as a justifiable national security concern for the two countries. Saudi Arabia appears to be neutral in the conflict and emphasises that the African Union should play the primary role in resolving the issue. Even the two downstream countries, Egypt and Sudan, have failed to adopt cohesive stances on the issue. At the Arab Summit held in Algeria on 2 November 2022, significant differences between Sudan and Egypt emerged in the working of the final document, even though they had been intent on welding wider Arab support behind their conflict with Ethiopia. This paper explores the nature of, and the reasons behind, the differences between GCC countries and the broader Arab community regarding the Renaissance Dam issue. Furthermore, it examines the potential for developing a unified yet flexible Arab Gulf position which could help to lay the basis for a balanced and fair agreement between Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt on the Renaissance Dam issue.

India’s maritime security dilemma and geopolitical competition in Indo-Pacific

ABSTRACT Maritime security is a major concern in the contemporary global environment. Rapid technological progress has facilitated the exploration and utilisation of oceanic resources in remote offshore regions. Traditionally, the maritime domain has faced several threats, such as sea piracy, armed robberies, and illegal drugs. In the twenty-first century, with the rise of China as an important maritime power, geo-strategic competition has increased among great powers. India has long enjoyed a sphere of influence in the Indian Ocean Region has been challenged. The rise of China poses a credible security threat to India in the Indo-Pacific region. This article explores the dynamic backdrop of global, regional, and domestic politics and their effects on Indian foreign policy through the ocean. This article contends that the marine security initiatives and actions observed over the last decade necessitate more comprehensive consideration. In global maritime politics, India and the USA look to each other as partners to counterbalance China. Nevertheless, India is not ready for any military alliance against China based on Indian national interests. Therefore, this paper examines how India has pursued its ‘strategic autonomy’ in the region during the power rivalry between China and the US.

Enhancing maritime transportation security: A data-driven Bayesian network analysis of terrorist attack risks.

Maritime terrorist accidents have a significant low-frequency-high-consequence feature and, thus, require new research to address the associated inherent uncertainty and the scarce literature in the field. This article aims to develop a novel method for maritime security risk analysis. It employs real accident data from maritime terrorist attacks over the past two decades to train a data-driven Bayesian network (DDBN) model. The findings help pinpoint key contributing factors, scrutinize their interdependencies, ascertain the probability of different terrorist scenarios, and describe their impact on different manifestations of maritime terrorism. The established DDBN model undergoes a thorough verification and validation process employing various techniques, such as sensitivity, metrics, and comparative analyses. Additionally, it is tested against recent real-world cases to demonstrate its effectiveness in both retrospective and prospective risk propagation, encompassing both diagnostic and predictive capabilities. These findings provide valuable insights for the various stakeholders, including companies and government bodies, fostering comprehension of maritime terrorism and potentially fortifying preventive measures and emergency management.

Oceans, Objects, and Infrastructures: Making Modern Piracy

Abstract The agenda of objectual International Relations has shown why object matters, how they arise and with what effects. Far less attention has been paid to how objects are maintained and stabilized over time and how their coherence is achieved. To add this dimension to the debate, we suggest turning to the infrastructures of object maintenance. Infrastructures are social material arrangements that maintain objects and enable their use. We introduce a framework for the study of object infrastructures and illustrate it by drawing on the case of “maritime piracy”. Providing a historical reconstruction of the infrastructures that produce piracy as an international object, we show that the growing proliferation of these infrastructures does not lead to an internal coherence of the object over time, but rather objectual fracturing and instability. We reveal how objects are often multiple rather than unitary. The article adds an important new dimension to the study of objects in International Relations.

Maritime Terrorism V. Piracy at Sea: Prevention of Maritime Security Threats and the Responsibility of States to Prevent in the Perspective of International Law

Maritime Terrorism V. Piracy at Sea: Prevention of Maritime Security Threats and the Responsibility of States to Prevent in the Perspective of International Law

Crimes at sea: Exploring the nexus of maritime crimes across global EEZs

Maritime crime refers to conduct which is perpetrated wholly or partly at sea and is prohibited under applicable national and international law. It also represents an understudied sector of crime and security. Crimes including maritime piracy and armed robbery; illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing; terrorism; and illegal drug, arms, wildlife, and human trafficking occur across maritime zones and pose serious threats to international trade, national security, and maritime security. Notably, these crimes often do not occur in isolation. Previous research has documented the convergence of these crimes within the terrestrial space but is thus far lacking a similar analysis as it pertains to the maritime space, which accounts for one of the most commonly used trafficking modes. Therefore, using data from the Stable Seas database, we aim to understand how different types of maritime crimes geographically converge and what this intersection means for policy and practice. Specifically, data on maritime piracy and armed robbery; mixed migration; and maritime arms, cannabis, coca, opiate, synthetic drug, and wildlife trades are analyzed to (1) establish rankings of maritime crime importance; (2) develop typologies of maritime crime convergence; and (3) integrate predictor variables to understand why certain regions tend to experience more abundant crime than others. Given data availability and policy relevancy, analyses focused on coastal countries of Africa, Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific.

Advancing coordination in critical maritime infrastructure protection: Lessons from maritime piracy and cybersecurity

Critical maritime infrastructure protection has become a priority in ocean governance, particularly in Europe. Increased geopolitical tensions, regional conflicts, and the Nord Stream pipeline attacks in the Baltic Sea of September 2022 have been the main catalysts for this development. Calls for enhancing critical maritime infrastructure protection have multiplied, yet, what this implies in practice is less clear. This is partially a question of engineering and risk analysis. It also concerns how the multitude of actors involved can act concertedly. Dialogue, information sharing, and coordination are required, but there is a lack of discussion about which institutional set ups would lend themselves. In this article, we argue that the maritime counter-piracy operations off Somalia, as well as maritime cybersecurity governance hold valuable lessons to provide new answers for the institutional question in the critical maritime infrastructure protection agenda. We start by clarifying what is at stake in the CMIP agenda and why it is a major contemporary governance challenge. We then examine and assess the instruments found in maritime counter-piracy and maritime cybersecurity governance, including why and how they provide effective solutions for enhancing critical maritime infrastructure protection. Finally, we assess the ongoing institution building for CMIP in Europe. While we focus on the European experience, our discussion on designing institutions carries forward lessons for CMIP in other regions, too.

The complementary relationship between illegal fishing and maritime piracy: A case study of the Gulf of Guinea

This research paper investigates the interrelationship between maritime crime, specifically sea piracy, and illegal fishing. Existing studies primarily focus on the link between piracy and illegal fishing activities carried out by foreign trawlers, drawing evidence from Somali piracy cases. A causal narrative in past works highlights the detrimental effects of foreign trawlers on local marine resources, ecosystems, and livelihoods, thereby driving local fishers to turn toward piracy and prompting coastal states to address the key issue of illegal fishing by foreign vessels.However, this emphasis on external perpetrators can lead states to pay less attention to local actors involved in illegal fishing and maritime piracy. Therefore, this study redirects our attention to local perpetrators who engage in illegal fishing and maritime piracy. It explores the complementary relationship between these two types of crimes. Our findings indicate that reducing illegal fishing activities in a local area enhances the likelihood of maritime piracy occurrence. By shedding light on the complementarity between illegal fishing and maritime piracy, this research provides valuable insights for policymakers and law enforcement agencies involved in combating maritime crime. It underscores the importance of locally addressing illegal fishing and piracy using a more holistic approach.

Skateboard crime and the pirating of urban space

This paper seeks to analyze “skate crime:” what skateboarders do, why they do it, and why it is criminalized even in public spaces. I begin with a case example of the Dolores Street Hill Bomb in San Francisco, a seemingly over-criminalized annual event that treats skaters as enemies of the city, a logic of enmity. This same logic was used to criminalize 17th–18th century “Golden Age” maritime piracy, a heuristic that helps assess the role that stigmatization by dominant orders of authority plays in skate crime. I deepen this narrative of skate crime by discussing four diverse facets that distinguish whether they are caused by political motivations or not and whether they have effects of social harm or not. I argue further that Golden Age piracy also fits this four-fold narrative, leading to my conclusion that skateboarding might be considered a kind of piracy, a “street piracy.”

Globalisation Occurred in Loch Craignish in 1720

The arrival of a pirate ship in Loch Craignish in 1720 was an episodic occurrence, which introduced a local community in Argyllshire to the process of globalisation, a process marked by the transoceanic movements of people, goods and ideas. For literate Scots, the wider horizons of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were opened up by novels, travel literature and newsprint. While reading material stimulated the mind and promoted discussion about matters of global interest, actual commodities from overseas variously engaged all the senses. Globalisation became an active rather than a passive experience. Sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste affected all, from the social, commercial and intellectual elites to the woman in the field and the man in the street in early modern Scotland. Nevertheless, public knowledge of where colonial commodities came from became distanced by time. A global awareness of place was retained in families and communities overtly engaged in mercantile and military adventuring, especially when accompanied by death whether through natural causes, misadventure or mortal combat. Illicit activities had a no less profound impact. Indeed, covert people trafficking, enslavement, smuggling, shipwrecking and piracy had a more local immediacy.

Maritime Piracy and its Implications on Security in the Gulf of Guinea

The purpose of the study is to determine how piracy poses security challenges in the Gulf of Guinea. Document analysis method was used to analyse literature related to piracy in the Gulf of Guinea. The theory employed is the securitization of pioneered by Barry Buzan, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde (1990). Also, a retrospective cohort design is used for the study. The findings of the study revealed that the domestication of the Code of Conduct and other legal frameworks will ensure that national laws align with international maritime laws and provide a legal basis for addressing maritime crimes, including piracy. The proffered recommendation is that the government should actively engage pirates and other stakeholders in dialogue and contribute significant resources to ameliorate the environmental and economic damage caused by the oil industry.

Exploring an early warning system for maritime security risks: An approach based on compressed sensing

Piracy has posed intractable challenges to maritime security and the global economy. This study introduces a real-time early warning system designed to monitor piracy activity in the vicinity of merchant vessels, thereby facilitating the assessment and countermeasure of potential attacks. The approach employs frequency agile radar to identify pirate ships characterized by aggregation and jamming behavior. To address the computational difficulties caused by changing frequencies, compressed sensing with a tailored target information processing procedure is applied to reconstruct the radar observation scene. The developed target detection algorithm yields precise information about nearby pirate ships, enabling a comprehensive evaluation of the risk level and the subsequent recommendation of an appropriate security scheme. Extensive experiments have shown that the proposed early warning model can provide best warning performance compared to other benchmark models, with an average accuracy of 0.964, precision of 0.966, recall of 0.955, F1 score of 0.960.

Analysis of maritime piracy trends and patterns using spatial autocorrelation in Africa

ABSTRACT Many studies have analyzed causation factors for piracy, but failed to quantitatively examine how piracy trends in regions have changed. The research aimed to establish the changing patterns of maritime piracy in Africa. The study utilized world piracy data from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, which was analyzed using spatial auto-correlation tools. Getis-Ord Gi* statistic identified piracy clusters and hot spot comparison tool compared the hot spot layers in East and West Africa. Autocorrelation analysis results suggest changing frequency of piracy incidents in the study areas before and after 2012. The mean Getis-Ord Gi* values for East Africa were 0.35946 and 0.07839 before and after 2012, illustrating agreater change. However, West Africa mean values were 0.60917 and 0.43408 pre and post 2012, suggesting minimal change. The comparison analysis results generated a smaller similarity value for East Africa (0.43350) and a larger index for West Africa (0.9867). West Africa recorded many incidents in the study period; hence, piracy intensity was almost similar. The study revealed high similarities in piracy events in West Africa, and low similarities in East Africa pre and post 2012. These have implications for understanding the changing dynamics of maritime piracy in Africa, and asserting spatial analysis.

Revitalizing the International Law Discourse on the Prohibition of Maritime Piracy: Voices from International Law Commission’s Work on Peremptory Norms of General International Law (Jus Cogens)

The International Law Commission (ILC) is tasked with the codification and progressive development of international law. Recently, the ILC submitted to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in its 73rd session ‘Draft Conclusions on identification and legal consequences of peremptory norms of general international law (jus cogens)’. The report holds significance as the concept of the jus cogens has been shrouded in mystery since its inception in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) in 1969. The Draft Conclusion 23 (non-exhaustive list) identifies eight norms (annex) fulfilling the requirement of jus cogens. The ILC clearly states that “…the inclusion of the list in the annex in no way precludes the existence of other norms that may have a peremptory character or the emergence of other norms in the future having that character.”[1] Thus leaving space for the inclusion of fresh norms through subsequent studies. Nonetheless, the ILC provided the techniques to identify peremptory norms under Draft Conclusions 4 to 9. Through this article, the author argues that the prohibition of piracy has matured into a jus cogens norm. This is done by applying the techniques formulated by the ILC in its recent report. Although there are several writings on the prohibition of piracy as customary international law, it has received scant attention in the context of the jus cogens, and the author intends to fill this lacuna. This study assumes relevance as States increasingly adopt domestic legislation to combat piracy.

Использование военно-морских сил для противодействия пиратству на море: преследование по горячим следам

The article analyzes modern maritime piracy, which poses a serious threat to maritime security and violates the universally recognized principle of freedom of the seas. According to the author, hot pursuit plays an important role in collecting evidence of committed maritime piracy. In conclusion, it is concluded that it is necessary to improve the regulatory and legal provisions on hot pursuit and the system of training military forces and means in general.