Country Watch
A Look at the Economic, Political, and Social Events that Shape International Law Around the World
UN Security Council Resolution Urges More Anti-Piracy Measures
On October 24, 2011, the United Nations (UN) Se- curity Council passed Resolution 2015 renewing its call to consider the establishment of special- ized anti-piracy courts in Somalia and other states in the region. The text of Resolution 2015 not only urges UN Member States to make piracy a crime under their domestic laws, but also stresses the importance of such courts having jurisdiction over anyone inciting or intentionally facilitating piracy operations, including key figures of criminal net- works who illicitly plan, organize, facilitate, or fi- nance and profit from piracy attacks.
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The Resolution also calls upon Somali authorities and other international partners to support the construction and responsible operation of prisons in Somalia in accordance with international law. The Resolution’s adoption came on the heels of a report issued by the International Maritime Bu- reau’s Piracy Reporting Center (IMB) which found that international maritime piracy had reached an all-time high in the first quarter of 2011, and that Somali pirates were responsible for 56 percent of the 352 attacks reported that year, despite in- creased efforts to patrol the areas in which they operate. In 2010 alone Somali pirates took home an estimated $238 million USD in ransom money. But that figure pales in comparison to the estimat- ed $7-$12 billion USD piracy cost the global com- munity in 2010 after figures relating to ransoms, insurance policies, prosecutions, naval forces, pro- tection services, anti-piracy organizations, and the re-routing of ships were factored in.
Piracy has been a major problem in Somali since the toppling of President Mohamed Siad Barre’s government and disbandment of the Somali mili-
tary in 1991. The lack of a centralized government since 1991 has left the territorial waters off Soma- lia’s coast unguarded, making large commercial vessels that rely on the region’s shipping routes easy targets for heavily-armed pirates. But some residents living in the impoverished fishing villag- es along the coast contend that the emergence of piracy has merely been a response to the illegal fishing and toxic dumping allegedly being perpe- trated by foreign companies since the outbreak of war. Without a navy to police such conduct, Soma- lis claim that the waters they have relied on as the source of their livelihood are being violated and that piracy is a justified way of counterbalancing their loss of income.
The crime of piracy is considered a breach of jus cogens and is thought to represent the earliest invocation of the concept of universal jurisdiction. But in practice, universal jurisdiction is not abso- lute and issues of territorial sovereignty have tra- ditionally prevented navies from pursuing pirates into Somali waters. To address this problem the UN Security Council has passed a number of reso- lutions, including Resolution 1816 which allowed States with military capabilities to pursue pirates into Somali waters for a period of six months with the permission of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG). Resolution 1846, passed in December 2008, extended earlier mandates since the TFG had requested additional international as- sistance in combating piracy in the region.
However, the resolutions still required military op- erations to be conducted within the framework of international law as defined by the UN Con- vention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Under UNCLOS, a warship must first send an officer-led party to board a suspected pirate ship to carry out an inspection before taking any further military ac-
ILSA Quarterly » volume 20 » issue 3 » February 2012
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