Pirate Code

If you aren’t feeling retro enough with the stock markets of 2008 being at roughly the same value as those of 1998, then I’d suggest looking to the high seas ,where this year seems more like 1708. Two days ago, pirates seized a Hong Kong-registered cargo ship, the Delight, in the Gulf of Aden. According the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), the Delight, which is now bearing toward Somalia, joins 17 other ships currently being held by pirates. This week has been particularly successful for piracy: Last weekend buccaneers captured a Japanese-operated chemical and oil tanker as well as a Saudi supertanker, which holds roughly $100 million worth of oil and is three times the size of an aircraft carrier. And let’s not forget the Ukrainian cargo ship, the Faina, which was captured in September while carrying $30 million of weapons and tanks. According to reports, the Faina’s owners have haggled the pirates down to $8 million in ransom from the original demand of $35 million—quite a steal, if you ask me.

Piracy is supposed to be one of those things that isn’t a problem anymore—much like polio, pantaloons, and the threat of the Visigoths sacking Rome. However, 2008 is shaping up to be a banner year for Somali pirates who operate around the Gulf of Aden. The IMB reports that so far in 2008 there have been 92 pirate attacks on ships compared with 31 last year and 10 in 2006. The problem has grown so serious that insurers last May declared the Gulf of Aden a “war risk” zone and increased the premiums of ships traveling there. Avoiding pirate waters is no easy task—it can cost ships five to 10 days of extra travel at $30,000 per day to go around Africa’s troubled waters or $200,000 to avoid them by paying Egypt for use of the Suez Canal. IMB’s Piracy Reporting Centre also concluded that worldwide attacks are becoming more violent, with 581 crewmembers held hostage as well as nine kidnappings and nine murders this year.

Pirates in Somalia have risen to such dangerous levels because they have successfully exploited a niche left open by non-existent domestic government and ineffective international laws. Somalia, by all accounts, has had a rough couple of decades. The last central government fell in 1991, and, in the 17 years of infighting since, Somalia has broken into three spheres of power: the transition government in Mogadishu, a breakaway Islamic group al-Shabab in the south and center, and a semi-autonomous region, Puntland, in the north mostly under the control of pirates. The chaos breeds corruption, as Abdi Waheed Johar, the director general of the fisheries and ports ministry in Puntland, commented to the New York Times that “there are government people working with the pirates.”

Because of the failed-state status of Somalia, the international community needs to take strong actions to curb piracy before the situation gets out of hand.

The first step is to internationalize Somalia’s waters until a functional government can patrol them. The United Nations Security Council moved in this direction last June by passing a resolution that allows foreign vessels to enter Somalia’s territorial waters and use “all necessary means” to combat piracy, a ruling that does not apply to other pirate hotspots such as Vietnam or Indonesia. While this resolution was a good start, a more concerted effort to stamp out piracy should be created through an international naval peacekeeping mission that controls waterways much like land-based peacekeeping missions.

The second move should be a liberalization of the rules of engagement. Currently, international laws require that a ship must be inspected before it can be engaged as a pirate ship. This, combined with practices to avoid confrontation once hostages have been taken, renders military deterrents ineffective.

The last obstacle is a consideration of the rights of pirates. Unlike in past centuries, individuals can no longer be captured for piracy, tried on a ship, and then hanged. Now suspected pirates must go on trial first, but where the trial is held becomes an issue when a citizen of one country attacks a ship of another country and is stopped by a naval ship of a third country in the territorial waters of a fourth country. The British Foreign Office has concluded that holding pirates indefinitely can infringe on their human rights and give them a case for asylum. But, at the same time, the British also can’t return them to Somalia, where they would face harsh punishment under Shariah law, which would violate the British Human Rights Act. This situation presents an obvious need for an international court for the express purpose of trying pirates and other individuals outside of typical national jurisdictions.

The extermination of piracy is necessary for maintaining international peace and trade. The United States’ first venture into foreign military intervention occurred when Jefferson sent the navy to fight Barbary pirates in 1801. We should take a page out of Jefferson’s book: A modern naval expedition freed from ineffective international law needs to be sent to wipe out these criminals.



Steven T. Cupps ’09, a Crimson editorial writer, is a human evolutionary biology concentrator in Lowell House. His column appears on alternate Thursdays.