Posts tagged ‘Somalia’
Piracy – Who DOESN’T Bear the Cost
Piracy has always been a major concern in the shipping world. However, the surge in piracy, particularly off the coast of Somalia over the past few years, has called for specific changes in shipping practices.
In the first nine months of 2009, there were 306 incidents of piracy reported to the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre (PRC). Of this number, 114 times pirates boarded the vessel, 34 times pirates hijacked the vessel and 88 times vessels were fired upon. While the Gulf of Aden and the East Coast of Somalia remain the regions of highest threat, pirate activity has expanded into the southern parts of the Red Sea, the Bab el Mandab Straits and the East Coast of Oman. This has led to the development of an entire industry of pirate negotiators and security firms who undertake to settle on ransom amounts and organize the drop shipment of the cash.
Shipowners sending their vessels through these dangerous waters have been slow to respond to these dangers, but have finally starting coming around to the inevitable: the beefing up of security for the ships. This includes paying extra amounts to join a protected convey in high-risk waters, hiring armed helicopters to fly over the ship, and in some instances, hiring armed guards to be on board the vessel itself. The great fear, of course, is that if a ship has its…
Somalian Pirates We!
In the battle against the ever-increasing threat of piracy off the coast of Somalia, a court has finally entered the fray. The court in question is Dutch, and in a recent decision stepped in to prevent a 14-year old girl from sailing off on her own to join the Somali pirates. Typically, the girl claimed she only wanted to break the record for the youngest solo circumnavigation of the world by sail. The truth however is painfully obvious: under the influence of torrent websites and Johnny Depp, youngsters from around the world are unable to resist the romance of piracy, and are setting sail to Somalia to sign up.
Striking a blow against Somali piracy, the momentous Dutch decision responded to a simple question: with no credible Somali government, who else was going to do it? And why shouldn’t a country enforce laws for someone else – look at Belgium’s fancy “universal jurisdiction” law. These questions go to a problem at the heart of public international law today: the “law is power” conundrum. In private international law, states in recent history have been moving further and further from a power-based model towards one founded on international comity. Globalisation rhetoric would have us believe that public international law is doing the same, but the Somali piracy issue belies this notion.
Somalia today, along with a handful of other places…
