Arguments Against Maritime Piracy

Maritime piracy is a historic problem, from the very old times up to the present. There have been many researches on how to prevent and on how to avoid the sea bandits, also known as pirates, to aboard your ship, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or also known as the UNCLOS, which is the primary treaty dealing with the specific crime of piracy, established laws about crimes on the seas, specially piracy and maritime terrorism. However, there were previous studies that showed unclear guides for safety procedures when entering a piracy prone area and there were some incomplete and undetailed history of the origin of piracy and other surveys that are out of date, since we are now in the 21st century, which means piracy methodology

It is according to Axe’s (2009) journal, that if you are a seafarer, you can’t kill using lethal weapons. Civilian vessels cannot carry lethal weapons as per regulation by an international agreement because the government doesn’t want armed vessels maneuver from post to post. In this case, once the pirates are on board, the crews got the whip hand. It is beyond doubt that piracy is wrong but is it really natural? The truth is that the place where the pirates, or Somali coast guards, operate actually insubordinate or lawless. In the Somali authorities, there is no functional government to establish or implement laws. Another issue is that countries don’t control much of the sea and the ocean, so there are no laws in the high seas. Throughout the old times, officials have put up together constitutional frameworks to uphold pirates into justice, but it has never been fast and easy. There has been a report that pirates had attacked a vessel but they were just simply released on the nearest coastal waters of the Somali sovereign without any harm acted upon

It is because of the pirate’s perception or concept in mind that the pirate is always the expected person who will bring home the bacon when he reaches the land of Somalia. Some of the reported pirate attacks are pirates usually steal cargos on ship and resell them on land. After unloading the cargo, the pirates will either sell the ship as scrap or re-register it for continuing criminal activity or sell it. Some even capture fishing boats and steal cargo of fish and forcing the crew overboard. There was even a report that all 23 crews were killed and their bodies overboard because they had captured an oil tanker, which means it is more than the worth of the ransom of the 23 crews.

Reference List

Axe, D. (2009). 10 Things You Didn't Know About Somali Pirates. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124060718735454125

Bhargava, P. (2013). The Menace of Maritime Piracy and Somali Pirates – Is There a Solution? Retrieved from http://www.marineinsight.com/marine/marine-news/headline/the-evolution-from-ship-piracy/

Chalk, P. (2009). Maritime Piracy: Reasons, Dangers and Solutions. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.

Kraska, J. (2011). Contemporary maritime piracy: international law, strategy, and diplomacy at sea. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger

Haywood, R. & Spivak, R. (2012).