Somali Piracy Research Articles

Book Review: Ruchita Beri (Ed.), India and Africa Enhancing Mutual Agreement

Ruchita Beri (Ed.), India and Africa Enhancing Mutual Agreement, IDSA, Pentagon Press, New Delhi, 2013, ₹ 795, pp.163, ISBN-978-81-8274-751-7.

The Robin Hood Narrative: A Discussion of Empirical and Ethical Legitimizations of Somali Pirates

The pirates of Somalia pose a major challenge for the international community, both economically and morally. Somali pirates try to legitimize their actions by reference to a number of arguments that appeal to the international community. Allegedly, the illegal fishing and waste dumping in Somali waters were the triggers for piracy. Hence, the pirates want to protect their coasts. These various strands form the so-called legitimacy Robin Hood narrative. In this article, this narrative is critically examined. The analysis includes a discussion of justice theories and related claims based on the works of John Rawls and Thomas Pogge. This is followed by a discussion of the justification of violence using Nicholas Fotion's irregular just war theory.

Discourses on Somali Piracy

Piracy off Somalia's coast has gained the imagination of the public and the attention of the media. Using critical discourse analysis, this paper considers stories about Somali piracy on the international BBC news website. A twin analysis is undertaken to determine how those involved in piracy and their actions are represented as well as how macro-discursive strategies of legitimation are employed. An historical contextualisation of Somalia and piracy complements the analysis. These analyses reveal how news stories do not focus on Somalis but on negative representations of pirates and positive representations of Western military powers. A number of linguistic strategies are identified that emphasise Western powers and articulate discourses that legitimate the continuing presence and actions of Western militaries. These discourses are drawn upon at the expense of discourses sympathetic to the plight of Somalis. These findings not only call into question the BBC's claims to objectivity, but also highlight the fact that stories do not promote conditions suitable for an end to piracy.

Somalia's "Pirate Cycle": The Three Phases of Somali Piracy

This article provides a theoretical framework for examining Somali piracy from its origins in the 1990s to the present. This analysis provides both a detailed description of the changing nature of piracy, as well as explanations for why these changes have occurred. The increase in pirate activity off Somalia from 1991 to 2011 did not occur in a steady linear progression, but took place in three separate phases. These three phases can be viewed in terms of a “cycle of piracy,” based on a theory developed by the pirate historian Philip Gosse in 1932. By employing this framework, policy-makers in the U.S. and elsewhere would be better able to judge when counter-piracy intervention is necessary. By preventing piracy from developing into large-scale professionalized operations, as witnessed in Somalia since 2007, the international community will be able carryout more efficient and effective piracy suppression operations in future.

Privatizing the struggle against Somali piracy

Pirate attacks against commercial vessels in the Western Indian Ocean and nearby seas reached an unprecedented level in 2011. Despite concerted efforts by the international community and shipping companies to address this threat by conducting naval patrols and equipping commercial vessels with non-lethal defenses, the frequency of pirate attacks continues to increase. The general ineffectiveness of existing anti-piracy measures has sparked interest in expanding the use of armed private security contractors to protect commercial vessels from pirate attacks. This article argues that armed private security contractors can, indeed, enhance the security of commercial vessels because these actors can provide onsite protection for commercial vessels, which should allow them to respond very quickly to pirate attacks, and because these actors are willing to use deadly force against pirates. However, this article also argues that expanding the use of these actors may increase the degree of violence used during pirate attacks, pose threats to the safety of innocent civilians, and violate a number of domestic and international laws.

The new pirate wars: the world market as imperial formation

The rise in pirate attacks in the proximity of the Horn of Africa and particularly off the Somali coast contributed to increasing international concern over the issue of piracy. In this article, instead of localizing and de-historicizing piracy in the Gulf of Aden as a problem of ‘state collapse’ and ‘insufficient international aid’, I argue that both piracy and international responses to it must be read as part of a much longer history of conflict, by which market institutions and respect for private property have been globalized at the point of appearing today as Universal, natural and eternal. I show how, since the eighteenth century, European empires often posed as a necessary bastion of law and order in the oceans of the world, legitimizing their violence as a form of neutral policing against depoliticized native ‘pirates’. Reducing the colonized Other to a ‘pirate’ lacking any political motive and/or legitimacy allowed European empires to depict imperialist wars as benign operations of international policing, and the colonization of entire communities as necessary for the civilization of the gangsters and criminals in their midst. In light of this history, I question the contemporary international mobilization against Somali piracy. In particular, I show how it risks banalizing and depoliticizing the complex issues that have contributed to the transformation of the sea in a zone of violence, in which different forms of plunder operate side by side.

How Piracy is Affecting Economic Development in Puntland, Somalia

The international community has united in its mission to halt the hijacking of merchant ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea with a massive naval presence that monitors the vast, strategic seas in which Somali pirates operate. This naval presence consequently has had some success in reducing pirate attacks in 2012, but why are the Somalis turning to piracy in the first place? The economic history of piracy has been well documented with other former “pirate hotspots” worldwide; however, there is little data available on the microeconomic affects of piracy. This article explores the underlying reasons of why Somalis have turned to piracy as a “profession,” and offers recommendations for the international community to eliminate piracy effectively through non-military means. This article is available in Journal of Strategic Security: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol6/iss1/7

Safeguarding Tourism and Tuna: Seychelles’ Fight against the Somali Piracy Problem

Seychelles is currently working to solve their piracy problem not simply manage it. Although numerous measures are underway by a multinational force, piracy continues to develop into a lucrative business. Severing the ties between piracy financiers and their criminal networks will help eliminate these activities. A standard policy mandating the arrest, prosecution, hold, and transport of all pirates is essential to solve the problem and deter this menace.

The Moral Economy of Somali Piracy – Organised Criminal Business or Subsistence Activity?

Abstract Somali piracy is increasingly explained in terms of organised criminal business. This article argues that piracy does not constitute a business and the analogy with organised crime is misleading and can obstruct the search for a long term settlement. Dismissing the underlying grievance, the destruction of Somali fisheries by foreign trawlers, with literalist explanations such as ‘pirates are rarely fishermen’ and ‘most targets are cargo ships’, ignores its function as a ‘legitimating notion’. The concept of ‘moral economy’ is used to explain how along the coast but also within the diaspora the identity of Somalis as victims is used to legitimize pirate activities. International responses should therefore focus actively and symbolically on reconstructing livelihoods along the coast, instead of seeking security sector and criminal justice solution. This is possible and cost effective because Somali piracy is a subsistence activity driven by lack of employment and investment opportunities, and provides a limited economic stimulus for coastal micro economies.

Orchestrating the Response: Somali Piracy and Ontological Complexity

AbstractContemporary piracy is a complex and intricate problem. This article discusses different sources of complexity of the problem and suggests paying attention to ontological complexity. To unravel ontological complexity one has to ask the very fundamental question: Why is piracy actually considered to be problematic? Addressing this question leads to a set of different paradigms of piracy which underpin counter‐piracy policy. Each of these paradigms works with different presumptions, foregrounds different dimensions and suggests other types of measures. Five paradigms of counter‐piracy are outlined: Firstly, a security paradigm, which stresses that piracy is a threat; secondly, a legal paradigm, within which piracy is a crime; thirdly, an economic paradigm within which piracy is a business model; fourthly, a development paradigm that interprets piracy as a problem of structural root causes; and fifthly a humanitarian paradigm in which piracy is the source of suffering for individuals. These paradigms produce a range of tensions between each other. The article concludes in stressing the importance of paying attention to this complexity to increase reflexivity in drafting counter‐piracy policies.Policy Implications Contemporary piracy is not only one problem, but different ones. There are competing paradigms of piracy. At least five paradigms of piracy exist: piracy as threat, as a crime, as a business model, as a problem of root causes, or as a humanitarian problem leads to contradicting policy objectives. Paradigms produce tensions and contradictions which are not easily reconciled. Complexity should not be reduced. Policy responses should be orchestrated, that is not streamlining according to a single logic, but playing with several logics, introducing breaks and silences as well using contradictions and tensions productively.

The Global Fight against Piracy

Maritime piracy – hijackings, kidnapping, hostage taking and armed robbery at sea – presents an ongoing challenge for the international community. What was long perceived as a problem of the past is today recognised to be a major challenge for international security. To act against piracy has proven to be an intricate affair. The new attention to piracy and indeed the return of the problem on the agendas of global politics started with the significant increase of piracy incidents in Southeast Asia in the 1990s. Southeast Asia has since seen the creation of a regional cooperation framework that addresses piracy through information sharing, improved coordination and common strategy making. Although piracy incidents in the area still occur, a viable counterpiracy infrastructure has been put in place to address the menace, and arguably piracy is well contained in the area. Piracy in the Horn of Africa and the Western Indian Ocean region is a different story. The international community has been increasingly engaged in the area since 2007, when the UN Security Council began to approach the issue. International actors, including states and international organisations, have been quite innovative in organising the response: multilateral naval missions organised by the US, NATO and the EU have been dispatched to the area; over 30 states participate in naval counterpiracy activities; states, international organisations (including the UN, the International Maritime Organisation, Interpol and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime) and private actors (such as shipping associations) coordinate their activity in the working groups of a UN Contact Group; over 1000 pirates have been prosecuted or are awaiting trial; and a complex international counterpiracy programme mixes security and law enforcement with regional rule of law projects, maritime security sector reforms and development programmes. Yet success is still limited. According to Jack Lang, the UN special adviser on piracy, ‘the race between the pirates and the international community is progressively being won by the pirates’. 1 The authors of this special section discuss what makes it so difficult for the international community to cope with piracy. They discuss the intricacies of finding tailored strategies and the obstacles and complexities that actors face in addressing Somali piracy. The authors draw on research from the emerging inter-disciplinary field of piracy studies, which has attracted a growing number of researchers from different disciplines. 2 Piracy studies is an intellectual project that focuses on understanding the return of piracy, how piracy is organised in different parts of the world, how it is embedded in a larger historical context and as part of international dynamics, and how counterpiracy responses can be improved (Bueger, 2013). It explores the relationship between piracy and other threats, such as terrorism, and uses it as a paradigmatic example for understanding contemporary international problems. Through this lens, piracy studies facilitate a productive inter-disciplinary dialogue and bring perspectives into the conversation that have often been understood as competitors or even as incommensurable. Scholars from international law, international security, development studies, logistics, economics and technical

Contemporary Maritime Piracy: Five Obstacles to Ending Somali Piracy

Contemporary Maritime Piracy: Five Obstacles to Ending Somali Piracy

The Political Economy of Somali Piracy

There are two main arguments, one political and one economic, that can be used to explain the rise of Somali piracy. The first is that Somalia's political vacuum following the 1991 collapse of the government created an enabling environment for illicit activities. The second is that entrepreneurial Somali pirates have created a business model that successfully exploits the incentives driving international maritime trade. The reason the Somali piracy boom did not materialize until 2005 is that local Somalis did not realize the potential of piracy and were not desperate enough until economic conditions deteriorated sufficiently as a result of of illegal trawling and toxic dumping by foreign ships and damage caused by the Indian Ocean Tsunami. The last few years' decline in the number of attacks by Somali pirates is primarily due to the coordinated efforts of navies that police the Gulf of Aden. While these efforts have increased the risk of being caught, and hence the costs of engaging in piracy, they do not address the root causes of piracy in Somalia. Until effective political authority and improved economic opportunities permanently alter the cost-benefit calculations of Somali pirates, the underlying incentives driving Somali piracy will remain unchanged, necessitating extensive and indefinite naval operations.

Governance, Naval Intervention and Piracy in Somalia

Might criminals in weak states benefit from better governance? We test the relationship between Somali piracy and local business conditions as well as (naval) law enforcement. Anarchy on land is not helpful to pirates, but corruptible governance is. Increasingly effective naval measures in the Gulf of Aden displaced piracy into the Indian Ocean.

Regional Dimensions of Somali Piracy and Militant Islamism: Anthropological and Econometric Evidence

This paper argues for a sub-regional approach to Somali piracy and militant Islamism, departing from prevailing state-centric mindsets and practices. The first section presents an anthropology that explains why piracy and Islamism emerged where they did when they did. It elaborates the geographically distinct cultures of law and livelihood that enabled each phenomenon to emerge only in particular sub-regions. Drawing on diverse factors including xeer (clan-based law), sharia (Islamic law), and practices of nomadic pastoralism (e.g., livestock raiding), the paper proposes a regional lens for the analysis of Somali crime and governance. The next section takes up this regional lens and specifies a statistical model for the incidence of piracy by sub-state region from 1993 to 2011, identifying the effect of Islamist rule on piracy. In all, the paper contends (a) that Somali political and criminal phenomena be disaggregated by region; and (b) that pirates and Islamists, contrary to mainstream discourse, are antagonists.

German maritime security governance: a perspective on the Indian Ocean Region

Besides the high number of attacks by Somali pirates, terrorists have threatened to disrupt Western maritime trade and oil and gas supplies in the Indian Ocean Region. This case study of German maritime security governance aims to examine these threats faced by Germany, and German countermeasures and preparedness. The German economy relies heavily on its international sea trade and Germany is home to the world's biggest container shipping companies. On one hand, authorities and stakeholders have been eager to improve risk assessment and implement international agreements. On the other hand, the different interests of ship-owners, seafarers and insurers, as well as a lack of agreement between the different ministries, are major challenges for German maritime security governance. Germany chooses to act within the international context concerning maritime security, but generally not in a leading role. However, maintaining a secure Indian Ocean region is paramount to ensuring its own economic security.

International law and counter-piracy in the Indian Ocean

International discussion of Somali piracy is now largely conducted in the language of law enforcement, not war or terrorism. The aim of this paper is to explain in a brief and practical way to non-lawyers the relevant legal categories and controversies surrounding Somali piracy and to suggest why the response to piracy has remained in the law enforcement ‘box’. It does this by considering piracy through the lens of four legal ‘paradigms’: the law of armed conflict; the international law of piracy; the law of terrorism (including terrorist financing); and the law applicable to transnational organised crime. The contention will be that the law enforcement paradigm is not only legally justifiable but also highly pragmatic and that the other categories may hold fewer benefits than observers might assume.

Book Review: The Newsphere: Understanding the News and Information Environment

Christine Tracy The Newsphere: Understanding the News and Information Environment. New York: Peter Lang, 2012. 132 pp.Christine Tracy's The Newsphere: Understanding the News and Information Environment offers an ecological examination of news. When viewed as an ecology, news is not a product to be consumed but a conscious act to engage with and produce shared information that has value in a community (p. 21). She calls today's relentless news environment the newsphere.Tracy, an associate professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Eastern Michigan University, argues the acceleration of news in digital forms has leftmost citizens adrift, surrounded by an overwhelming number of as well as ever-changing methods, networks, and channels by which these are delivered. Thus, one key goal of Tracy's work is to provide instruction in learning to sort through the newsphere's noises and the clutter, and particularly recognizing unprocessed and unconscious messages (p. 2).But the primary goal of this book is to urge each of us to acknowledge not only a cultural but also a moral responsibility to take control of our own news expectations, perceptions, and consumption. By accepting the deeper and more understanding of the effect news has . . . you can design a more viable and enlightened relationship with and in the (p. 2).The reasoning behind placing ourselves consciously in the newsphere is driven by a conceptual model Tracy finds in the works of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881- 1995). Teilhard, a Jesuit priest, anthropologist, and scientist, was the thought leader of what he called the noosphere, a global layer of intelligence that encircles the Earth. As defined by Wikipedia (para. 3), Teilhard's noosphereemerges through and is constituted by the interaction of human minds. . . . As mankind organizes itself in more complex social networks, the higher the noosphere will grow in awareness. . . . Teilhard argued the noosphere is growing towards an even greater integration and unification, culminating in the Omega Point, which he saw as the goal of history. The goal of history, then, is an apex of thought/consciousness.Thus, Teilhard believed, we have affirmative obligations ourselves to le Tout- the All-to improve the condition of humanity through our own evolving contributions to the noosphere. And part of that is Tracy's concern with our participation in the newsphere.Journalists are urged to evolve their work so that it becomes more participatory, relevant, and transparent. Such forces would keep the newsphere open and selfvetting, she says, and stories would gain value through these intelligent networks. Such reporting would lead us closer to truths, even inconvenient ones.For example, dramatic story imperatives drove the 2009 reporting on NBC's Dateline of the capture of U.S. Navy Captain Richard Phillips by Somali pirates. A one-hour presentation of leading questions by Matt Lauer to Captain Phillips appeared along with animated reconstructions of what had happened. Without subtracting from Phillips's horrid ordeal or subsequent rescue by the Navy Seals, Tracy asks us to appraise this docudrama and finds it lacking in several integral ways as journalism.For example, it does not consider that some nine million Somali people are near starvation, nor how that has been made worse by the overfishing of other nations. These factors may have driven the first ambushes at sea. The ecological damage done by other nations that have used the African coast as a dumping ground for nuclear waste makes all of this even more complicated. …

Somalia's Pirate Cycle: The Three Phases of Somali Piracy

This paper asks the question of what accounts for the dramatic increase in piracy off the coast of Somalia in recent years. This is accomplished by not only exploring the unprecedented rise of pirate attacks since 2006, but also by tracing the evolution of Somali piracy over the past two decades. This paper demonstrates that between the early 1990s and the present Somali piracy has developed in three distinct phases, which are directly linked to the political situation within the country. Furthermore, these three phases can be viewed in terms of a “cycle of piracy,” based on a theory developed by the historian Philip Gosse (1932). By doing so this paper places Somali piracy within broader political and historical contexts, as well as a theoretical framework.

Outsourcing the prosecution of Somali pirates to Kenya

There has been a failure by the international community to establish an effective system of prosecution for the trial of captured Somali pirates. This failure is in part due to the inability of the United States and by developed countries in Europe to carry out their responsibility as prescribed under international laws dealing with the prosecution of captured pirates. Owing to domestic political pressures, it has become politically expedient to outsource the trial of captured Somali pirates to Kenya and other developing countries in the East African region. By the end of 2009, Kenya had signed six memoranda of understanding with Canada, China, Demark, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union. Kenya has become the single largest destination for the trial of captured Somali pirates whose victims are not Kenyans; the attacked vessels do not fly the Kenyan flag, the attacked ships are not managed by Kenyans and the crimes did not occur in Kenya's territorial waters. Outsourcing as constructed, conceived and implemented at present is morally and legally wrong. It has left a weak and poor country to shoulder the responsibility of the international community. This paper examines the reasons for outsourcing and its implications for Kenya.