Academic literature on the topic 'Maritime piracy, high seas, insurance'

Maritime commerce in world commerce. Each year, vessels carry more cargo at higher costs and faster speeds. Insurance is an integral part of shipping, as it protects cargoes and crews against the perils of the sea. This article focuses on the peril of piracy, a criminal practice that has evolved significantly throughout history. Pirates today, as pirates of the past, prey upon the unprotected. Yet, modern piracy, unlike historical piracy, is essentially non-violent. The modern pirate profits from ransom, not theft. Today, piracy is a monetary risk with compu­­­table consequences: an insurable threat. Anti-piracy methods, including insurance, impose steep costs to world trade. In the past decade, pirate activity has declined while piracy insurance has grown more expensive. This phenomenon is problematic, but an industry-wide solution is a challenging construct. To handle the costly risks of piracy is to balance the distinct and competing interests of ship-owners, insurers, operators, and governments. As this Article argues, insurance can more efficiently mitigate piracy’s puzzling risk. After discussing maritime piracy and maritime insurance, this Article outlines the legal and regulatory schema for a system to mandate the speeds of vessels that transit pirate-prone waters. The proposed regulation is mechanically sound, logistically feasible, cost-effective, and enforceable. To diminish the costly risk of piracy, this Article proposes revising a treaty to afford the International Maritime Organization (IMO) jurisdiction to regulate vessel speeds on the high seas.

These days, one of the most significant issue is maritime piracy and armed robbery; it poses a high threat against international peace and security. These crimes can occur anywhere on the high seas, but the most infected areas are the western basin of the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Aden, Southeast Asia, or the Gulf of Guinea, where piracy causes many troubles to world trade. The crime of piracy calls for a strong and substantive answer. In this paper, the author tries to look for legal and non-legal devices against piracy and tries to give an answer to the question whether we can take a failed state to account in international law?

AbstractThe rise of Somali piracy in the beginning of the 21st century led to a swift response by the international community. Suspects were arrested by naval forces in the high seas exercising universal jurisdiction. As there is no international tribunal for maritime piracy, the suspects were prosecuted in national courts using domestic laws. The United States prosecuted a handful of cases using its piracy statute passed in 1909, which incorporates international law but prescribes mandatory life imprisonment for those convicted. Although the definition of the crime of piracy in the United States evolves along with developments in international law, the punishment is an outlier that deviates from global norms. This article argues that the punishment for piracy in the United States must also evolve with international practice because a changing definition of a crime coupled with a fixed punishment may lead to rule of law violations and other undesirable results.

Due to the increasing rate of economic damages of insecurity to the Nigerian maritime industry with cases of loss of revenue to the federal government occasioned by; high freight charges for Nigeria bound cargoes, high insurance premium changeable on both ships and cargoes, coming to Nigerian and total boy-cut of the Nigerian ports by most shipping lines. The researchers were motivated to carry out a research on economic implications of maritime piracy related attacks on Nigeria’s maritime industry. This research was set out to realize some specific objectives while research hypotheses were formulated in this regard to address the objective of this study. Related literatures were reviewed and the research adopted ex-post facto design. Isan E. et al (2004) pointed out that ex-post factor design in research is the type of research in which there is a systematic empirical inquiring in which the researcher does not have direct control of independent variables because their manifestations have already occurred. Data were sourced through secondary means while the hypotheses were tested at 5% level of significance. The result of the analyses indicated that there is no significant relationship between poor performance of maritime industries in Nigeria and piracy activities. It also revealed that there is significant relationship between Nigerian piracy and revenue generation in the oil and maritime sector, also that piracy has recorded significant success in Nigerian territorial waters and that there is significant relationship between Sea piracy and methods of curbing the menace in Nigeria. Based on the revelations of this study, the researchers recommended that radar surveillance of recommended anchorages seaward access to berth, increased random patrols by fast police or coastguard crafts or helicopters be organized, ensuring alignment terminal security staff and port security forces among many others.

AbstractPiracy holds a special place within the field of international law because of the universal jurisdiction that applies: any state may seize a pirate ship on the high seas and decide upon the penalties to be imposed, as is currently the case with Somali and West African pirates. Unlike today, piracy was the norm in pre-modern times. Maritime trade and piracy went hand in hand. At the same time, kings and emperors recruited their admirals from among pirates. This raises the question of how princes, states and cities distinguished between legal and illegal violence at sea. How did they deal with maritime conflict among themselves and among their respective subjects and citizens? This article puts maritime conflict management in a European, global and long term perspective while avoiding anachronistic and teleological approaches. Finally, it argues that pre-modern conflict management is relevant to understand maritime security in the twenty-first century.

AbstractPiracy holds a special place within the field of international law because of the universal jurisdiction that applies: any state may seize a pirate ship on the high seas and decide upon the penalties to be imposed, as is currently the case with Somali and West African pirates. Unlike today, piracy was the norm in pre-modern times. Maritime trade and piracy went hand in hand. At the same time, kings and emperors recruited their admirals from among pirates. This raises the question of how princes, states and cities distinguished between legal and illegal violence at sea. How did they deal with maritime conflict among themselves and among their respective subjects and citizens? This article puts maritime conflict management in a European, global and long term perspective while avoiding anachronistic and teleological approaches. Finally, it argues that pre-modern conflict management is relevant to understand maritime security in the twenty-first century.

This article presents some reflections on the impact on the law of the sea of the Security Council resolutions on piracy off the coasts of Somalia. Although they extend the powers concerning the repression of piracy all States enjoy on the high seas under UNCLOS and customary international law to the territorial sea of Somalia, these resolutions explicitly exclude that such extension modifies the customary rule that limits piracy to the high seas. As such exclusion does not encompass other general rules of the law of the sea relevant for piracy, the resolutions may be read as relevant elements illuminating the meaning of these rules. The rules of UNCLOS on which the Security Council resolutions shed light include Article 3, setting 12 miles as the maximum width of the territorial sea, Article 77, which, read a contrario sensu, states the requirement of express proclamation for the exclusive economic zone, Article 105, second sentence, as regards the States that may establish judicial proceedings against pirates. The peculiar situation of ineffectiveness of governmental authority in Somalia and uncertainty about the maritime zones of this country explain many aspects of the Security Council’s attitude.

Although universal jurisdiction over piracy has long existed in customary international law and international conventions, such as the Convention on the High Seas (HSC) and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the piracy situation has been changing. The subsidence of Somali piracy provides an opportunity for rethinking how to strengthen universal jurisdiction for maritime piracy trials to enhance a sustainable anti-piracy legal system. The incidents of Somali piracy have resulted in some new developments in exercising universal jurisdiction: the separation of seizing, prosecuting, and imprisoning States; the consideration of creative piracy prosecution mechanisms; the increased focus on land-based facilitation of piracy; enhanced international cooperation; and expanded universal jurisdiction. This leads to several main challenges in existing legal frameworks, including weaknesses in UNCLOS, the disharmony among international instruments, and defects in domestic piracy legislation. In order to sustain and improve the anti-piracy legal system, universal jurisdiction over piracy should be incrementally strengthened to support the prosecution of pirates by States. To address the trends and challenges, this article explores how the legal system can be enhanced in two respects: adjusting the basic provisions of universal jurisdiction over piracy and refining the relevant measures in exercising that jurisdiction to prosecute pirates.

This article aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the maritime patrol regime (Indomalphi regime) in reducing piracy cases of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the Sulu Sea and Sulawesi Sea involving Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Referring to the concept of regime effectiveness, it was found that the Indomalphi regime was proven effective in reducing the number of maritime cases in the Sulu and Sulawesi seas. The effectiveness of the regime is formed by a combination of four positive factors: (1) the regime is not classified as benign, indicating no inconsistencies, asymmetries, and cumulative splits in the formation of the Indomalphi regime; (2) the regime has a good problem-solving capacity because of epistemic community support that tightly integrated into the regime; (3) level of collaboration between the regime members is high, indicated by member’s compliance to the standard operating procedure (SOP) of the Indomalphi’s patrols even though there is no sanctions mechanism; (4) the regime facing a political context which provides an advantage with indicated by smooth cooperation during the process of Indomalphi cooperation even the three countries have sovereign sentiments and maritime territorial conflicts.KEYWORDSAbu Sayyaf Group; Indomalphi; Maritime Piracy; Regime Effectiveness; Sulu-Sulawesi Sea

On October 7, 1985, the Achille Lauro, an Italian-flag cruise ship, was seized while sailing from Alexandria to Port Said. The hijackers, members of the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), a faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), had boarded the ship in Genoa, posing as tourists. They held the ship’s crew and passengers hostage, and threatened to kill the passengers unless Israel released 50 Palestinian prisoners. They also threatened to blow up the ship if a rescue mission was attempted. When their demands had not been met by the following afternoon, the hijackers shot Leon Klinghoffer, a Jew of U.S. nationality who was partly paralyzed and in a wheelchair, and threw his body and wheelchair overboard. The United States characterized the seizure as piracy, a position that has been supported by some commentators and opposed by others.

Piracy exists since the dawn of navigation and affected all coastal populations, within them, there are groups dedicated to it. By the Phoenicians, the Etruscans, the Greeks pirates, history is full of stories of trips haunted by the threat of piracy. In the Roman conception handed down so far, the pirates were conceived as enemies of all mankind, for the violence in order to kill. They were, therefore, considered a kind of dangerous criminals, who could freely hunt by anyone, as well as any State today can pursue the pirate attack when it occurs on the high seas, or in a marine space not subject, in fact, to the jurisdiction of any. The high seas constitutes, therefore, an essential element of the definition of piracy as contained in UNCLOS, or "acts of depredation (animus furandi) or violence committed on the high sea or in areas not under the jurisdiction of any State for private ends by the crew of a ship or a private aircraft against another ship or a private aircraft "and it is distinct from the cases of" armed robbery at sea ", or any act of boarding any ship with the intent to commit a theft or other crime having the ability to use force in the course of the action, regardless of the reasons for which it is committed. What makes piracy similar to other figures, such as terrorism. And it is the conception of private or political order that perhaps, in this writer's opinion, should be thorough and filled by a review of the definitions contained in International Conventions and in national law. Even in the Italian legal system, the definition of piracy is not unanimous either sharing in the doctrine nor in jurisprudence because of the complexity of the concept that it represents and the heterogeneity of sources, both international and domestic. important and essential step in fighting and preventing piracy is the law August 2, 2011 n. 130 with the aim of protecting the Italian ships in transit in international sea areas at risk piracy. This law provides for the possibility, through specific agreements concluded between shipowners and Italian Ministry of Defence, with economic burdens of the first, to take on Military Protection. The subsequent amendments introduced by D.M. 266/2012, states that the owners can use, alternatively, special security guards, similar to international contractors after specific licenses and special training courses. Piracy (especially in some sea areas in the world) involves high costs with an impact on the shipping companies, crews and maritime traffic, including the insurance costs incurred for compensation, the losses and the ransom paid to the pirates, which is regulated under English law, which hedging policies relating to both the ship and cargo, and crew. And in reference to this last element that are controversial issues arose, regulated differently depending on the legal system.

Thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy (Political Management) at Stellenbosch University
Thesis (MPhil (Political Science))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Inflicting a financial loss of over $US16 billion to international shipping, the occurrence of maritime piracy in areas such as the Strait of Malacca and the west coast of Africa, has significantly affected the long-term stability of global maritime trade. Since the collapse of the Somali state in the early 1990’s, international watch groups have expressed their concern as to the rise of piracy off the Somali coast and the waterways of the Gulf of Aden. However, 2008 marked an unprecedented increase in pirate attacks in Somali waters. These attacks did not only increase in number but also became more sophisticated. As more than 85% of world trade relies on maritime transport, the world was forced to take notice of the magnitude of Somali piracy. Considering the relative novel nature of Somali piracy, this field presents a vast potential for further and in-depth academic inquiry. This descriptive and explanatory study set out to explore the evasive nature of the what and why (and who) of Somali piracy and relied on inductive reasoning in order (a) to explore and define the contributing causes to the Somali conflict; (b) to indicate how the conflict and the resulting consequences in particularly the Puntland region contributed to the rise of maritime piracy; (c) to determine whether the pirate groups are fishermen protecting their resources by acting like vigilantes and self-defence units, or if they were bandits, warlords, Islamists or a combination of aforementioned; and to (d) establish the role which resource scarcity and state collapse played in rendering Somalia vulnerable to maritime piracy. In pursuing the above mentioned goals, this study relied on an analysis of authoritative and contemporary sources. Media reporting was used for updating the fast moving information. This study attributed the Somali conflict to historic and ethnic clan rivalries and the legacy of colonial rule that led to the arbitrary partitioning of Somalia by colonial superpowers. Military rule, oppression, wars with neighbours (Ethiopia), superpower intervention, famine and the rise of warlords made for state failure in Somalia. In Puntland, such factors were further aggravated by severe environmental hardship and natural disasters. Food became one of the scarcest resources in Somalia. People migrated to cities and to the coast where foreign fishing vessels also exploited the absence of coast guards in plundering fish. Some Somali fishermen reacted and in retrieving fish, apprehended ships, resulting in armed robbery at sea. But many went further, hijacking merchant vessels, and demanding huge ransoms. Initially prompted by grievance towards the exploitation of the Somali coastal resources, the vast financial rewards of piracy rapidly transformed this impetus to personal gain and greed. In doing so, these groups assumed characteristic similar to criminal bandits and warlords. Or were they Islamists fundraising for al-Qaeda? But unlike warlords, pirates normally never kill. The links with either Islamists or terrorism have also not been established either. The alleged link with criminal networks is much more plausible.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Maritieme seerowery in areas soos die Straat van Malacca en aan die weskus van Afrika, het tot op datum, na raming, finansiële verliese van meer as $US16 biljoen aan internasionale skeepshandel berokken en het ‘n beduidende negatiewe effek op die langtermyn stabiliteit van globale maritieme handel. Sedert die verval van die Somaliese staat in 1991, het internasionale waarnemingsgroepe hul besorgdheid uitgespreek oor die toename van seerowery aan die Somaliese kus en die aangrensende Golf van Aden. Vanaf 2008 was daar egter ‘n ongekende toename in seerower aanvalle in Somaliese kuswaters. Nie alleen was daar ‘n toename in die aantal insidente nie, maar die aanvalle is gekenmerk deur meer gesofistikeerde metodes. Aangesien meer as 85% van wêreldhandel afhanklik is van seevervoer, was die wêreld genoodsaak om kennis te neem van die omvang van die verskynsel. Gegewe die feit dat Somaliese seerowery ‘n relatiewe onlangse verwikkeling is, bied hierdie veld groot potensiaal vir verdere en diepgaande studie. Die beskrywende en verduidelikende studie het ten doel om die ontwykende vraagstuk oor die wat, hoekom en wie van Somaliese seerowery te verken en by wyse van induktiewe beredenering die volgende vas te stel: (a) om die bydraende oorsake tot die Somaliese konflik te ondersoek en te definieer, (b) om aan te dui hoe die konflik en die gevolge daarvan, spesifiek in die Puntland streek, bygedra het tot die ontstaan van plaaslike seerowery (c) om vas te stel of die seerower-groepe vissers is wat hul bronne beskerm deur vigilante of selfverdedigings-eenhede te stig en of hulle oorlogsbaronne, radikale Islamiste of ‘n kombinasie van voorafgenoemde is, en (d) om die rol te beskryf wat hulpbron-skaarste en staatkundige verval gespeel het om die risiko van seerowery in Somalie te verhoog. In navolging van voorafgenoemde doelwitte het die ondersoek staatgemaak op ‘n deeglike ontleding van gesaghebbende en kontemporêre bronne. Hierdie teoretiese grondslag is verder aangevul deur media-verslaggewing oor die onderwerp. Die studie het bevind dat die Somaliese konflik toegeskryf kan word aan historiese en klanverskille en die nalatenskap van koloniale heerskappy wat mettertyd gelei het tot die arbitrere verdeling van Somalië deur koloniale moondhede, militêre onderdrukking, geskille met buurstate (Ethiopië), inmenging van supermoonthede, hongersnood en die opkoms van oorlogsbaronne. Hierdie faktore het bygedra tot die staatkundige verval van Somalië. In Puntland in besonder, is hierdie bydraende faktore vererger deur omgewingsontbering en natuurlike rampe. Gevolglik het voedsel een van die skaarste hulpbronne geword in Somalië. Hierdie omstandighede het die bevolking na die kus gedryf, waar buitelandse visserbote onwettig die mariene-bronne geplunder het. In reaksie hierop het die bevolking self die wapen opgeneem om sulke skepe te konfronteer wat gelei het tot gewapende roof ter see. Sekere vissermanne het egter verder oortree en bote gekaap en aangehou in ruil vir omkoopgeld. Dit was egter lank nie meer gekaapte vissersbote nie, maar handelsskepe met ander duursame vragte. Terwyl hul optrede aanvanklik gemotiveer is deur ontevredenheid met die onwettige ontginning van mariene bronne, het die aansienlike finansiele voordele van seerowery hierdie dryfveer mettertyd gewysig tot een van persoonlike gewin en hebsug. In hierdie proses het die groeperinge eienskappe ontwikkel soortgelyk aan kriminele rowers en oorlogsbaronne van die oopsee en radikale Islamiste. Anders as oorlogsbaronne het hierdie groepe egter nie die lewe van hul slagoffers geneem nie. Die verband tussen hierdie seerowergroepe en radikale Islamiste of terroriste groepe kan ook nie verseker vasgestel word nie. Daar is dus ‘n meer geloofwaardige verband tussen sulke groepe en georganiseerde kriminele netwerke.