The strategy

According to a recent BBC report, off the Somalian coast, the hotspot of piracy attacks, only seven to 10 pirates, armed with heavy weapons and cruising in speed boats board the ship and make the initial attack. After the ships are captured, they are taken mostly to the port of Eyl. Once the vessel is seized, it has been reported, 50 pirates stay on board while 50 more wait on the shore to see that nothing goes amiss. At Eyl, the pirates treat their hostages well in expectation of a huge ransom amount. No hostages have been reported killed in Somali pirate hijackings. The crew of the hijacked ships is fed at special restaurants that have sprung up in the area. And though the country has not had a stable government in 17 years, plush houses and fancy cars dot the town. According to one estimate, money made by pirates from ransom payments was higher than the annual budget of Puntland last year. Lately, pirates have changed their tactics with heavily armed attackers operating simultaneously in the Gulf of Aden and on the eastern coast of Somalia, extending their range by operating from larger vessels. They use a mother ship as a mainstay of their attacks, from where they launch smaller boats to attack vessels.

The ransom amount

Gone are the days of Stevenson’s Long John Silver, of pirates decamping with buried treasures or lugging treasure chests. Today when ships are attacked and captured, a tall ransom changes hands. On an average, today most captured ships fetch a ransom of anything between $300,000 and $1.5 million. If Danish-owned Svitzer Korsakov captured off Somalia’s northern semi-autonomous Puntland region was freed after the payment of a ransom of $700,000, a Spanish fishing boat captured by Somali pirates from Spain’s Basque region in April 2008 was released within a week’s time after the Spanish government reportedly paid a ransom of $1.2 million. Somali pirates released a German operated ship in September 2008 after a ransom of $ 1.1 million was paid, while $1.5 million reportedly changed hands for the release of Japanese tanker MT Irene, captured on August 21, 2008. With shipping companies agreeing to pay huge ransoms, the frequency of attacks have gone up.

The law

Piracy is considered a breach of a conventional international norm that states must uphold, a crime against nations instead of any particular nation. Those guilty of the crime of piracy are considered by sovereign states to be enemies of humanity. In English law, piracy was considered petit treason, while during the reign of Henry VIII it was redefined as felony.

The complexity of the laws

Pirates attack ships mostly outside the territorial waters of a state, making it difficult for the sovereign states to prosecute them. Their prosecution on high seas contravenes the conventional freedom of the high seas. However, because of universal jurisdiction, action can be taken against pirates without objection from the flag state of the pirate vessel.

UN and piracy

The UNCLOS (The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) came into existence as a result of the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III), which began in 1973 and concluded in 1982. The convention, nevertheless, came into force only in 1994, a year after the 60th state Guyana ratified it. It defines the rights and responsibilities of nations in their use of the world’s oceans, establishing guidelines for businesses, environment, and management of marine natural resources. The convention also assumed significance as it set limits of various areas and classified areas of jurisdiction. This includes internal waters (the coastal state reserves exclusive rights over them; no right of passage for foreign vessels); territorial waters (extends up to 12 nautical lines from the baseline; foreign vessels permitted right of peaceful passage); contiguous zone (beyond the initial 12 nautical miles, another 12 nautical miles where the respective coastal states can continue to enforce laws regarding activities such as smuggling or illegal migration); exclusive economic zones (extends upto 200 nautical miles from the baselins, with the coastal state given exclusive rights over the use of natural resources); and continental shelf (natural prolongation of the land territory to the continental margin’s outer edge, or 200 nautical miles from the coastal state’s baseline, whichever is greater).

In its efforts to combat escalating piracy off the coasts of Somalia, the UN Security Council in June 2008 unanimously passed Resolution 1816 which authorised foreign warships to enter Somalia’s territorial waters with the Government’s consent. But the resolution is yet to be implemented. A multinational taskforce has also been operational in Djibouti in recent months to patrol parts of the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, where a pirate mothership is believed to be functional.

The role of IMB

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) assists in the suppression of piracy and armed robbery against ships around the world. In view of escalating piracy, the IMB, in 1992, established a Piracy Reporting Centre in Kuala Lumpur the job of which was to raise awareness of piracy hotspots, detail attacks and their consequences, investigate incidents of piracy and armed robbery at sea and in port.

Piracy hotspots

As per High Risk Areas 2008, as reported by the International Maritime Bureau, these are Nigeria, Indonesia, Tanzania, India, Bangladesh