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Third International Conference on Strategic Theory “Good order at sea off Eastern Africa: Beyond piracy”

(September 2013)

A three day Conference, 18.9.-.20.9.2013, Dar es Salam, Tanzania.

Revisiting maritime security along the east coast of Africa is a matter currently eclipsed by the anti-piracy debate. The African eastern littoral comprises more than events off the Horn of Africa and it is prudent to cast the maritime debate wider than Somali piracy. When actors and decision-makers thus contemplate maritime security, the piracy theme has become a fixture, but one that neglects wider matters of maritime security.

If one changes the narrative to enquire on the state of order at sea off eastern Africa, the response repertoire may change as well. The geostrategic landscape and threat perceptions shift to support the belief that the suppression of sea piracy does not equate to the return of good order at sea in east African waters. Addressing the latter is important for order at sea is the longer-term objective due to the importance of its constituent elements for Africa as well as the international society.

The Decline of Somali Piracy – Towards Long Term Solutions

By Christian Bueger

The decade of large scale piracy off the coast of Somalia appears to be over. For almost two years no successful hijacking attempt was reported. Has piracy off Somalia been eradicated once and for all? According to the latest report of the UN Monitoring Group pirates have not gone out of business, but into other (illicit) businesses. Moreover, acts of piracy or armed robbery in the Western Indian Ocean is still occurring. But if it does, it is on a lower scale, and concerns smaller local trading and fishing vessels and is outside of the radar of the international community. Arguably it is still the time to be optimistic that the various measures adopted to curb piracy in the region have shown effect. In this blog I argue for the need of being cautious about the current success and question its sustainability.

I start in briefly revisiting the factors that are known to be the triggers of piracy and reflect on how these provide an explanation for the rise of Somali piracy. I then proceed in discussing the prevailing explanation for the decline of Somali piracy. Core reasons for the success of international measures can be seen in the measures adopted by the shipping industry, including the employment of armed guards, the successful international naval program and international prosecutions, as well as the declining support of local communities for piracy. Investigating these reasons leads me to the conclusion that many of the factors that trigger piracy still pertain. This centrally concerns the high degree of maritime insecurity in the region. A primary goal hence has to be to improve the quality and efficacy of maritime security governance in the region.

Finding a Regional Solution to Piracy: Is the Djibouti Process the Answer?

by Christian Bueger & Mohanvir Singh Saran

A significant component of the long term strategy to counter-piracy originating in Somalia is the attempt to find regional solutions. The idea is to build a regional maritime security infrastructure which can cope with the menace in the long run. The very successful implementation of the East Asian Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP ) which provides a regional structure for cooperation and communication is the role model for such a solution. [ref] For a discussion of ReCAAP see Ho 2009, Geiss & Petrig 2011, Kraska 201.[/ref] To build such a structure for the Western Indian Ocean region, the international actors have worked along two tracks. Firstly, attempts have been made to implement such a structure within existing regional organizations, including the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD), the East African Community (EAC), the South African Development Community (SADC) or the African Union (AU). Several initiatives are underway or in the planning stage within these organizations, the outcome of which is unclear so far. Secondly, since 2009 a process is underway to build such a structure outside of existing organizations. The so called Djibouti Code of Conduct Concerning the Repression of Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in the Western Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea areas process (or in short: Djibouti Code or DCoC, ) steered by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has been making slow but steady progress to build such an infrastructure. Implemented as a largely technical structure on an expert level the process has led to some tangible outcomes. The DCoC process is and arguably will be crucial to address piracy in the long run. Yet, so far there is little analysis or debate on it. In this commentary we aim at filling this gap. We review what DCoC has achieved so far, what it wants to achieve, what its main hurdles for progress are and what its future role in the counter-piracy regime might be. In what follows we provide an overview of the process and offer some initial thoughts on the challenges the process faces. Read more →

The Save Our Seafarers Campaign – More a Hindrance, than a Help?

By Christian Bueger

Shipowners frequently wonder why the problem of piracy does not receive more political support and why not more public resources are spent to address the issue. One answer to this quandary is: public support. No convincing case has been made that the problem of piracy is in the public’s interest, that it is an issue that requires the money of taxpayers and cannot be dealt with by the shipping industry on its own.

A recent study of reporting on Somali piracy in the major international newspaper has shown that media reporting – crucial to win public support – does not present piracy as a problem of the public. International media largely presents piracy as a problem of economic security. Piracy is considered mainly as a concern of the shipping industry and mariners.[i] So far, “widespread public concern was not demonstrated” in the media, the study concludes.[ii]

The international shipping industry has made increasing efforts to raise the public profile of the piracy problem and to lobby for more support. A crucial device has been the campaign “Save our Seafarers” (SOS) launched in March 2011. If we follow the results of the study, then public campaigns such as SOS have not succeeded to convince their publics that piracy is a public concern. They have failed to make a case that piracy is more than an issue of commercial interests and a problem of a handful of corporations (which moreover, have hesitated to contribute as much as they could in tax). If such a case will not be made than it is unlikely that more public resources will be devoted to piracy. Even more worrying for global shipping, it carries the risk that the international naval missions will come to an end or will be significantly downscaled sooner or later. Yet, why has the SOS campaign failed so far to make such a case and win the public? One answer is obviously the lack of resources. Another answer is experience. Over the past decades, global shippers have been more busy to hide the nature of their business from an already “seablinded” public. This widespread culture of secrecy among the shipping industry as well as the exclusivity in the wider community of mariners is a hindrance in reaching out to the public. A third answer, which is the one I want to expand below, is to be found in the message the SOS campaign disseminates. As I will show below, the campaign is badly designed and might even be considered as counter-productive. Read more →

Special Issue on Piracy at Sea

By Dr. Samuel Pyeatt Menefee (Maury Fellow, Center for Oceans Law & Policy, University of Virginia and Adjunct Professor, World Maritime University) and Dr. Maximo Q. Mejia Jr. (Associate Professor, World Maritime University)

A special issue has just been published by the WMU Journal of Maritime Affairs (Springer Verlag). The issue aims at contributing to the ongoing discourse on maritime piracy and its various contexts: socio-political stability, development, economics, legislation, policy, law enforcement, regional security, international cooperation, human rights, health, andrisk management, among others. The April 2012 issue is one of the very few issues of any journal that has dedicated anissue exclusively to the contemporary menace of piracy; even fewer such issues are readily accessible on line. Dr. Samuel Pyeatt Menefee (Maury Fellow, Center for Oceans Law & Policy, University of Virginia and Adjunct Professor, World Maritime University) and Dr. Maximo Q. Mejia Jr. (Associate Professor, World Maritime University) served as Guest Editors for the WMU Journal’s April 2012 issue. Read more →

The EU’s Misguided Move to Fight Pirates Onshore

By James Bridger, Atlantic Council of Canada

When confronting the crisis of Somali piracy, the preferred strategy of the international community has been to deploy naval vessels to protect vulnerable ships and deter and disrupt pirate attacks. The refrain that ‘the solution to piracy lies onshore’ is oft-heard, but counter-piracy actors—including the US, the EU, and NATO—have been slow to deepen their engagement with regional authorities and hesitant to expand the military scope of their operations. A significant shift in strategy was thus seen on March 23, 2012, when the Council of the European Union agreed to extend the area of operations for the EU’s counter-piracy mission, Operation Atalanta, to “include Somali coastal territory as well as its territorial and internal waters.” While a more inland focused policy is a welcome development, the EU’s proposed escalation of force risks increasing civilian casualties and local resentment and will have to contend with the unintended consequences of mission creep. This new strategy also comes at the expense of an alternative onshore policy: increased international support for maritime security capacity building programs in Somalia’s pirate-prone areas and the wider region. Read more →

Towards Blue Justice: Common Heritage and Common Interest in the Maritime

Peter Sutch, Cardiff University

The importance and complexity of our political, economic and environmental relationship to the sea makes the evolution of a contemporary normative vision of the maritime essential. We need Blue Justice for the blue economy and for the increasingly contentious politics of the maritime. In this blog I want to make a plea for a renewed political theory of the Maritime – A second Grotian moment that generates a Mare Iustitia rather than a Mare Liberum.

In a recent and fascinating piece on this website, Barry J. Ryan urged a critical engagement with the sea and its architecture of freedom and argued persuasively for a normative vision for the sea. Because readers of this blog will have access to that work I want to start there and begin to outline the contours of blue justice. Barry Ryan took the tensions between the freedom of the sea and the idea that the sea is the common heritage of mankind (as well as our outdated distinction between politics on land and politics at sea) as the starting point for his critical and normative argument. He also showed how powerful states carve up this common heritage securing for themselves, rather than mankind, the commercial and military benefits of our common freedom of the sea. We can learn a lot from this – we clearly need normative principles that encourage us to pursue activities in the maritime with at least some concession to the common good. But the foundations of blue justice are such that determining the common good is even more complex than this suggests. The multiple and fragmented legal frameworks that apply to the sea divide the maritime as much as the freedom grabbing of littoral states. Read more →

International Relations Must Challenge the Freedom of Security at Sea

Barry J Ryan, Keele University

We should be embarrassed that so little has been written about the politics of the sea in the field of International Relations (IR). Traditionally limited to the study of relations between states, even the cultural turn that so reinvigorated scholarship in IR a few decades ago has maintained the focus of research on political phenomena that occur on land. Flicking through a basic textbook in IR one would be forgiven for concluding that IR is a landlocked discipline. Anything higher could make it near impossible to cash https://clanchronicles.com/do-casinos-have-cameras-in-the-bathroom/ the bonus out. As a discipline, its knowledge of the role played by the sea in global history is, simply put, too basic and thus dangerous. Spins Royale Casino Free Spins https://tpashop.com/no-deposit-bonus-for-captain-jack-casino/ 4. More often than not it comes down to simplistic statements about the freedom of the sea that are too rarely critically challenged. On a European wheel, there is just one extra pocket the https://www.fontdload.com/las-vegas-casino-address-dar-es-salaam/ single zero , which sets the house edge at 2. The danger lies when maritime commentary bases its analysis on this freedom, writing about it as though it has always existed, that it is sacrosanct and that it must be maintained for the good of humanity. Military intervention is usually justified on the basis that the freedom of the sea is a fundamental principle of human progress. The open sea, we are told, must be secured, for commercial reasons, for environmental reasons, and for moral reasons. Read more →

What Future for the Contact Group on Somali Piracy? Options for Reform

Christian Bueger, Cardiff University

2016 marks the beginning of the transition of the counter-piracy response in the Horn of Africa. Many states have already significantly reduced their involvement in counter-piracy. Recent revisions of the counter-piracy architecture raise the question of what the future holds for the main coordination body, the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS).

Recently, the High Risk Area has been revised, which documents that international stakeholders are altering the approach they take to contain piracy. While the US-led Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) have announced in July 2015 to continue their operation, the mandates of the two other missions, NATO’s Operation Ocean Shield and the EU’s EUNAVFOR Atalanta, are under review. There are clear expectations that the EU will continue the mission in one form or another and maintain the Maritime Security Centre Horn of Africa, important for situational awareness in the area. These developments need to be seen against the backdrop of the assessment that no large scale piracy attack was successful since 2012. Notwithstanding, the threat of piracy in the region persists. This is clearly highlighted by the 2015 threat assessment of the military missions and further evidenced by recent reports of low scale hijackings and hostage taking attempts. Read more →

Contemporary Piracy as an Issue of Academic Inquiry: A Bibliography

Jan Stockbruegger, Brown University, & Christian Bueger, Cardiff University

We have compiled a new version of the Piracy Studies Bibliography, which you can access as PDF here.

The aim of this bibliography is to gather a comprehensive collection of academic works on contemporary (post WWII) maritime piracy, with a focus on academic books, journals and working paper. There are many Texas online casinos that provide a real money gambling https://www.fontdload.com/how-to-beat-slot-machines-at-a-casino/ experience. In addition the bibliography includes some titles on the history of piracy, and some general interest literature on piracy. The present version includes almost 600 entries. Wagering requirements are subject https://www.siliconvalleycloudit.com/best-way-to-play-video-poker/ to 50x times. It documents the extent to which piracy has become a serious issue of academic inquiry, and how investigations of piracy contribute to general discourse and debates in International Relations, Area Studies, Maritime Studies, International Law, Criminology, and other disciplines. We hope that this bibliography helps you a little bit to find your way through the piracy studies literature. However, you need patience for the UK Online Slots casino https://starlitenewsng.com/online-casino-echtgeld-bonus-ohne-einzahlung-2019/ agents to get back to you. Please access the bibliography here.

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Economic Factors for Piracy: The Effect of Commodity Price Shocks

Alexander Knorr, University of Colorado

Modern maritime piracy has become a significant issue which costs the global economy $24.5 billion per year. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) reports that attacks in major waterways have increased over the past decades. Extensive research has been done with regard to countering piracy and understanding the resurgence of attacks since the early ‘90s. What are the mechanisms which drive different people in different countries across the globe to all participate in such illegal activities? One of these mechanisms is addressed in a research notes article recently published in the journal Studies in Conflicts and Terrorism.

Norm Subsidiarity in Maritime Security: Why East Asian States Cooperate in Counter-Piracy

Terrence Lee and Kevin McGahan, National University of Singapore

Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia are the three key littoral countries that border the Straits of Malacca, a major waterway and transit area in Southeast Asia which has traditionally witnessed a fair amount of maritime piracy through the ages. While these countries generally hold many things in common, such as historical, linguistic and cultural ties, they are also differ significantly in terms of strategic and economic interests. Despite these important differences, why have Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia been able to cooperate in implementing and enforcing an anti-piracy regime that has been relatively effective? In a recently published article in the Pacific Review, we seek to engage this research question. We initially draw on theories in international relations that are informed by rational choice to explain international cooperation, namely neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism. We argue that key developments of the anti-piracy regime are not fully explained by such rationalist theories, which often stress strategic and material interests of states. In fact, despite rising levels of piracy in the Straits that threatened commercial and strategic goals, for many years the littoral states demonstrated only modest cooperative initiatives.

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