The piracy is costing the world economy billions of dollars a year and international navies have struggled to combat the menace, especially in the Indian Ocean, due to the vast distances involved.
The shipping industry, some of whose members already employ private guards, says better armed and increasingly violent seaborne gangs pose a growing threat to vital sea lanes.
In a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sent last month and published on Friday, the world’s four international shipping associations said hundreds of seafarers were being held hostage and 60 merchant mariners had died already due to piracy.
“It is now abundantly clear to shipping companies that the current situation, whereby control of the Indian Ocean has been ceded to pirates, requires a bold new strategy,” they said.
“Rather than meeting their obligations under the UN convention on the law of the sea, governments have allowed the Indian Ocean to resemble the ‘wild West’.”
While naval patrols, including vessels from the European Union, the US and other nations such as South Korea, Iran and Turkey, have curbed the number of attacks in the Gulf of Aden, piracy in the Indian Ocean has continued to rise.
The four associations, the International Chamber of Shipping, BIMCO, Intercargo and INTERTANKO, which represent the majority of the world’s ship owners, said the situation could only be reversed with a different approach to supplement long term development work in Somalia.
“We believe that an important element in this approach would be the establishment of a UN force of armed military guards that can be deployed in small numbers onboard merchant ships.”
“This would be an innovative force in terms of UN peacekeeping activity but it would do much to stabilize the situation, to restrict the growth of unregulated, privately contracted armed security personnel and to allow those UN member states lacking maritime forces ... to make a meaningful contribution in the area of counter-piracy,” they said.
John Drake, senior risk consultant with security firm AKE, said a UN naval solution was unlikely to solve the problem.
“It is impossible to patrol the entire Indian Ocean. The body of water is simply too large to protect. Even in the narrow Gulf of Aden, pirate attacks have continued despite the naval presence in the area,” he said.
“A blockade of ports may be successful as this will allow naval forces to concentrate their efforts in a very small area of water, but this will antagonize the Somali population and cut off fishermen from their work. It will also be difficult to enforce, both from a practical perspective and potentially from a legal perspective, and if legal barriers are overcome this will likely involve a lengthy process.”
Drake said piracy remained a land-based problem.
“It might be a better use of world resources to tackle poverty, famine, the effects of drought and a chronic lack of political and civic institutions on the land in Somalia.”
