DISEC (Disarmament and International Security

Committee)

Topic Area A:Piracy on high seas

Contents:

 Introduction
 Background
 Modern society
 Recent Events
 International Authority
 International Law
 Mechanisms for Combating Piracy
 Legal Complications to Combating Piracy
 Useful Links

Piracy is a war-like act committed by private parties (not affiliated with any government)
that engage in acts of robbery and/or criminal violence at sea. The term can include acts
committed in other major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include
crimes committed against persons travelling on the same vessel as the perpetrator (e.g.
one passenger stealing from others on the same vessel). The term has been used to
refer to raids across land borders by non-state agents. Piracy should be distinguished
from privateering, which was authorized by their national authorities and therefore a
legitimate form of war-like activity by non-state actors. This form of commerce raiding
was outlawed in the 19th century

Maritime piracy, according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
(UNCLOS) of 1982, consists of any criminal acts of violence, detention, rape, or
depredation committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship
or aircraft that is directed on the high seas against another ship, aircraft, or against
persons or property on board a ship or aircraft. Piracy can also be committed against a
ship, aircraft, persons, or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any state , in fact
piracy has been the first example of universal jurisdiction. Nevertheless today the
international community is facing many problems in bringing pirates to justice.

Piracy was a phenomenon that had its source back in the Classical antiquity back has
evolved through time into a modern threat of the democratic society. Not only to
society as in international peace an security but also economic stability and financial
growth.

Seaborne piracy against transport vessels remains a significant issue (with estimated
worldwide losses of US $13 to $16 billion per year), particularly in the waters between
the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, off the Somali coast, and also in the Strait of Malacca and
Singapore, which are used by over 50,000 commercial ships a year. A recent surge in
piracy off the Somali coast spurred a multi-national effort led by the United States to
patrol the waters near the Horn of Africa.

Piracy can feed on whole economies but can nurture them as well. Piracy remains the
most important commercial sector in Somalia, with a whole string of profiteers ranging
from unemployed Somalis to guards, negotiators, translators and even private citizens
who agree to house the kidnapped sailors. Insurance companies also benefit by selling
anti-piracy policies, as do shipyards given the job of repairing ships that have been
damaged by pirates.

Attacks off the Somali coast have become a growing concern for international shipping
companies over the years. The East African country has experienced decades of civil war
and unrest, but the waters off Somalia are one of the world's busiest and most important
shipping routes.
Modern pirates favor small boats and taking advantage of the small number of crew
members on modern cargo vessels. They also use large vessels to supply the smaller
attack/boarding vessels. Modern pirates can be successful because a large amount of
international commerce occurs via shipping. Major shipping routes take cargo ships
through narrow bodies of water (such as the Gulf of Aden and the Strait of Malacca)
making them vulnerable to be overtaken and boarded by small motorboats. Other
active areas include the South China Sea and the Niger Delta. As usage increases, many
of these ships have to lower cruising speeds to allow for navigation and traffic control,
making them prime targets for piracy.

Also, pirates often operate in regions of developing or struggling countries with smaller
navies and large trade routes. Pirates sometimes evade capture by sailing into waters
controlled by their pursuer's enemies. With the end of the Cold War, navies have
decreased size and patrol, and trade has increased, making organized piracy far easier.
Modern pirates are sometimes linked with organized-crime syndicates, but often are
parts of small individual groups.

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) maintains statistics regarding pirate attacks
dating back to 1995. Their records indicate hostage-taking overwhelmingly dominates
the types of violence against seafarers. For example in 2006, there were 239 attacks, 77
crew members were kidnapped and 188 taken hostage but only 15 of the pirate attacks
resulted in murder. In 2007 the attacks rose by 10% to 263 attacks. There was a 35%
increase on reported attacks involving guns. Crew members that were injured
numbered 64 compared to just 17 in 2006. That number does not include
hostages/kidnapping where they were not injured.

The number of attacks within the first nine months of 2009 already surpassed the
previous year's due to the increased pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden and off Somalia.
Between January and September the number of attacks rose to 306 from 293. The
pirates boarded the vessels in 114 cases and hijacked 34 of them so far in 2009. Gun use
in pirate attacks has gone up to 176 cases from 76 last year.

In some cases, modern pirates are not interested in the cargo but instead in taking the
personal belongings of the crew and the contents of the ship's safe, which might contain
large amounts of cash needed for payroll and port fees. In other cases, the pirates force
the crew off the ship and then sail it to a port to be repainted and given a new identity
through false papers often purchased from corrupt or complicit officials.

Modern piracy can also take place in conditions of political unrest. For example,
following the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, Thai piracy was aimed at the many
Vietnamese who took to boats to escape. Further, following the disintegration of the
government of Somalia, warlords in the region have attacked ships delivering UN food
aid.
Environmental action groups such as Sea Shepherd have been accused of engaging in
piracy and terrorism, when they ram and throw butyric acid on the decks of ships
engaged in commercial fishing, shark poaching and finning, seal hunting, and whaling. In
two instances they boarded a Japanese whaling vessel. While non-lethal weapons are
used by the Sea Shepherd ships, their tactics and methods are considered acts of piracy
by some.

The attack against the U.S. cruise ship the Seabourn Spirit offshore of Somalia in
November 2005 is an example of the sophisticated pirates mariners face. The pirates
carried out their attack more than 100 miles (160 km) offshore with speedboats
launched from a larger mother ship. The attackers were armed with automatic firearms
and an RPG.

Many nations forbid ships to enter their territorial waters or ports if the crew of the
ships are armed in an effort to restrict possible piracy. Shipping companies sometimes
hire private armed security guards.

Modern definitions of piracy include the following acts:

 Boarding
 Extortion
 Hostage taking
 Kidnapping of people for ransom
 Murder
 Robbery
 Sabotage resulting in the ship subsequently sinking
 Seizure of items or the ship
 Shipwrecking done intentionally to a ship

In modern times, ships and airplanes are hijacked for political reasons as well. The
perpetrators of these acts could be described as pirates (for instance, the French for
plane hijacker is pirate de l'air, literally air pirate), but in English are usually termed
hijackers. An example is the hijacking of the Italian civilian passenger ship Achille Lauro,
which is generally regarded as an act of piracy.

Modern pirates also use a great deal of technology. It has been reported that crimes of
piracy have involved the use of mobile phones, satellite phones, GPS, Sonar systems,
modern speedboats, assault rifles, shotguns, pistols, mounted machine guns, and even
RPGs and grenade launchers.

Nature and Severity of the Threat

Pirate attacks are largely confined to four major areas:

· The Gulf of Aden, near Somalia and the southern entrance to the Red Sea;
· The Gulf of Guinea, near Nigeria and the Niger River delta;
· The Malacca Strait between Indonesia and Malaysia;
· The Indian subcontinent, particularly between India and Sri Lanka.

In 2009, maritime piracy reached its highest level since the IMB's Piracy Reporting
Center began tracking piracy incidents in 1992, surpassing levels from 2008, which was
the previous record year. Of the forty-nine successful hijackings in 2008, forty-two
occurred off the coast of Somalia, including the capture of an oil supertanker, the Sirius
Star. In 2009, that number rose to forty-seven, despite reduced global shipping and a
multi-country naval military force aimed at stemming piracy in the region. Overall
attacks off the coast of Somalia represented about half of all maritime piracy globally
according to the IMB. Though Somalia gets the lion's share of attention on global piracy,
the IMB says incidents off the coast of Nigeria, which largely involve robberies rather
than hijackings, were more likely to include violence against the crew than anywhere else
in the world in 2009. In other areas of the world, including Indonesia, piracy dropped.

The shipping industry has urged greater action on the part of the world's navies. But
many ships are not even using basic deterrents.

There is no quantitative research available on the total cost of global piracy. Estimates
vary widely because of disagreement over whether insurance premiums, freight rates, and
the cost of reroutings should be included with, for instance, the cost of ransoms. Some
analysts suggest the cost is close to $1 billion a year, while others claim losses could
range as high as $16 billion.

Defining Piracy-Is it Terrorism?

The hijacked supertanker scenario provokes nightmares not only for the shipping
industry, but for terrorism analysts. Maritime experts debate the links between piracy and
terrorism. Many are adamant that piracy is not terrorism. As defined in the UN
Convention on the Law of the Sea, piracy is "any illegal acts of violence or detention, or
any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a
private ship or a private aircraft.

But some experts note two areas in which piracy and terrorism might overlap. The first is
legal. Both groups are nonstate actors; according to the Law of the Sea, piracy must occur
on the high seas (outside territorial boundaries), and outside the jurisdiction of any state.

The second area of overlap is financial. In Somalia, there is speculation that pirates are
funding Islamic terrorist organizations.

Recent incidents
 During the Troubles in Northern Ireland, two coaster ships were hijacked and
sunk by the IRA in the span of one year, between February 1981 and February
1982.
 A collision between the container ship Ocean Blessing and the hijacked tanker
Nagasaki Spirit occurred in the Malacca Straits at about 23:20 on 19 September
1992. Pirates had boarded the Nagasaki Spirit, removed its captain from
command, set the ship on autopilot and left with the ship's master for a ransom.
The ship was left going at full speed with no one at the wheel. The collision and
resulting fire took the lives of all the sailors of Ocean Blessing; from Nagasaki
Spirit there were only 2 survivors. The fire on the Nagasaki Spirit lasted for six
days; the fire aboard the Ocean Blessing burned for six weeks.
 The cargo ship Chang Song boarded and taken over by pirates posing as customs
officials in the South China Sea in 1998. Entire crew of 23 was killed and their
bodies thrown overboard. Six bodies were eventually recovered in fishing nets. A
crackdown by the Chinese government resulted in the arrest of 38 pirates and
the group's leader, a corrupt customs official, and 11 other pirates who were
then executed.
 The New Zealand environmentalist, yachtsman and public figure Sir Peter Blake
was killed by Brazilian pirates in 2001.
 Pirates boarded the supertanker Dewi Madrim in March 2003 in the Malacca
Strait. Articles like those written by the Economist indicate the pirates did not
focus on robbing the crew or cargo, but instead focused on learning how to steer
the ship and stole only manuals and technical information. However, the original
incident report submitted to the IMO by the IMB would indicate these articles
are incorrect and misleading.
 The American luxury liner The Seabourn Spirit was attacked by pirates in
November 2005 off the Somalian coast. There was one injury to a crewmember;
he was hit by shrapnel.
 Pirates boarded the Danish bulk carrier Danica White in June 2007 near the coast
of Somalia. USS Carter Hall tried to rescue the crew by firing several warning
shots but wasn't able to follow the ship into Somali waters.
 In April 2008, pirates seized control of the French luxury yacht Le Ponant carrying
30 crew members off the coast of Somalia. The captives were released on
payment of a ransom. The French military later captured some of the pirates,
with the support of the provisional Somali government. On June 2, 2008, the
United Nations Security Council passed a resolution enabling the patrolling of
Somali waters following this and other incidents. The Security Council resolution
provided permission for six months to states cooperating with Somalia's
Transitional Federal Government (TFG) to enter the country's territorial waters
and use "all necessary means" to stop "piracy and armed robbery at sea, in a
manner consistent with international law.”
 Several more piracy incidents have occurred in 2008 including an Ukrainian ship,
the MV Faina, containing an arms consignment for Kenya, including tanks and
 other heavy weapons, which was possibly heading towards an area of Somalia
controlled by the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) after its hijacking by pirates before
anchoring off the Somali coast. The Somali pirates—in a standoff with US missile
destroyer the USS Howard—asked for a $20 million ransom for the 20 crew
members it held; shots were heard from the ship, supposedly because of a
dispute between pirates who wanted to surrender and those who didn't. In a
separate incident, occurring near the same time (late September to early
October), an Iranian cargo ship, MV Iran Deyanat, departing from China, was
boarded by pirates off Somalia. The ship's cargo was a matter of dispute, though
some pirates have apparently been sickened, lost hair, suffered burns, and even
died while on the ship. Speculations of chemical or even radioactive contents
have been made.
 On November 15, 2008, Somali pirates seized the supertanker MV Sirius Star,
450 miles off the coast of Kenya. The ship was carrying around $100 million
worth of oil and had a 25-man crew. This marked the largest tonnage vessel ever
seized by pirates.
 On April 8, 2009, Somali pirates briefly captured the MV Maersk Alabama, a
17,000-ton cargo ship containing emergency relief supplies destined for Kenya. It
was the latest in a week-long series of attacks along the Somali coast, and the
first of these attacks to target a U.S.-flagged vessel. The crew took back control
of the ship although the Captain was taken by the escaping pirates to a
lifeboat.On Sunday, April 12, 2009, Capt. Richard Phillips was rescued, reportedly
in good condition, from his pirate captors who were shot and killed by US Navy
SEAL snipers. Vice Admiral William E. Gortney reported the rescue began when
Commander Frank Castellano, captain of the Bainbridge, determined that
Phillips' life was in imminent danger and ordered the action.
 In July 2009, Finnish-owned ship MV Arctic Sea sailing under Maltese flag was
allegedly hijacked in the territorial waters of Sweden by a group of eight to ten
pirates disguised as policemen. According to some sources, the pirates held the
ship for 12 hours, went through the cargo and later released the ship and the
crew. However, an investigation into the incident is underway amidst
speculation regarding the ship's actual cargo, allegations of cover-up by Russian
authorities and Israeli involvement.
 On April 1, 2010, pirates attacked the USS Nicholas, an Oliver Hazard Perry-class
missile frigate in international waters west of the Seychelles. The pirates opened
fire from a small skiff at 12:27 a.m. local time, presumably mistaking the warship
for a merchant vessel in the dark. The USS Nichlolas returned fire, pursuing the
small vessel until it stopped. The U.S. Navy crew detained the three occupants of
the skiff as well as two more pirates aboard the mother ship, which was waiting
nearby.

Authorities estimate that only between 50% to as low as 10% of pirate attacks are
actually reported (so as not to increase insurance premiums).
Legal authority

There are legal barriers to prosecuting individuals captured in international waters.

Countries are struggling to apply existing maritime law, international law, and their own
laws, which limits them to having jurisdiction over their own citizens. According to
piracy experts, the goal is to "deter and disrupt" pirate activity, and pirates are often
detained, interrogated, disarmed, and released. With millions of dollars at stake, pirates
have little incentive to stop.

Prosecutions are rare for several reasons. Modern laws against piracy are almost non-
existent. The Dutch are using a 17th-century law against sea robbery to prosecute.
Warships that capture pirates have no jurisdiction to try them, and NATO does not have
a detention policy in place. Prosecutors have a hard time assembling witnesses and
finding translators, and countries are reluctant to imprison pirates because they would
be saddled with them upon their release.By contrast, the United States has a statute
imposing a sentence of life in prison for piracy "as defined by the law of nations"
committed anywhere on the high seas, regardless of the nationality of the pirates or the
victims.

George Mason University professor Peter Leeson has suggested that the international
community appropriate Somali territorial waters and sell them, together with the
international portion of the Gulf of Aden, to a private company which would then
provide security from piracy in exchange for charging tolls to world shipping through the
Gulf.\

In international law

Effects on international boundaries

During the 18th century, the British and the Dutch controlled opposite sides of the
Straits of Malacca. The British and the Dutch drew a line separating the Straits into two
halves. The agreement was that each party would be responsible for combating piracy in
their respective half. Eventually this line became the border between Malaysia and
Indonesia in the Straits.

Law of nations

Piracy is of note in international law as it is commonly held to represent the earliest

invocation of the concept of universal jurisdiction. The crime of piracy is considered a
breach of jus cogens, a conventional peremptory international norm that states must
uphold. Those committing thefts on the high seas, inhibiting trade, and endangering
maritime communication are considered by sovereign states to be hostis humani
generis (enemies of humanity).
In English admiralty law, piracy was defined as petit treason during the medieval period,
and offenders were accordingly liable to be drawn and quartered on conviction. Piracy
was redefined as a felony during the reign of Henry VIII. In either case, piracy cases were
cognizable in the courts of the Lord High Admiral. English admiralty vice-admiralty
judges emphasized that "neither Faith nor Oath is to be kept" with pirates; i.e. contracts
with pirates and oaths sworn to them were not legally binding. Pirates were legally
subject to summary execution by their captors if captured in battle. In practice,
instances of summary justice and annulment of oaths and contracts involving pirates do
not appear to have been common.

Since piracy often takes place outside the territorial waters of any state, the prosecution
of pirates by sovereign states represents a complex legal situation. The prosecution of
pirates on the 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. This represents an exception to the
principle extra territorium jus dicenti impune non paretur (the judgment of one who is
exceeding his territorial jurisdiction may be disobeyed with impunity).

In 2008 the British Foreign Office advised the Royal Navy not to detain pirates of certain
nationalities as they might be able to claim asylum in Britain under British human rights
legislation, if their national laws included execution, or mutilation as a judicial
punishment for crimes committed as pirates.

International conventions

UNCLOS(The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), also called
the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea treaty, is the international
agreement that resulted from the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the
Sea (UNCLOS III), which took place from 1973 through 1982. The Law of the Sea
Convention defines the rights and responsibilities of nations in their use of the world's
oceans, establishing guidelines for businesses, the environment, and the management
of marine natural resources and of course pirace )

Article 101: Definition

In the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) of 1982, "maritime
piracy" consists of:

(a) any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed
for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private
aircraft, and directed:
(i) on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or
property on board such ship or aircraft;
 (ii) against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction
of any State;
(b) any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an aircraft
with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft;
(c) any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in
subparagraph (a) or (b).

A limitation of UNCLOS Art 101 is that it confines piracy to the High Seas. As the majority
of piratical acts occur within territorial waters, some pirates are able to go free as
certain jurisdictions lack the resources to monitor their borders adequately.

Any international or national jurisdiction has its source on the UN Convention on the
Law of the Sea which is the most legally binding among its members (condition that the
country has either succeeded or acceded to the convention-meaning singing and
ratifying). The convention defines different kinds of piracy based on different
traits(whether on merchant ship or not etc.)

The Convention has set ground rules for the prosecution of pirates and its jurisdiction.
An international organization under the mandate of the UN was set as a guarantee to
rules ITLOS. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) which is seated in
Hamburg.

IMB Definition

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) defines piracy as:

the act of boarding any vessel with an intent to commit theft or any other crime,
and with an intent or capacity to use force in furtherance of that act.

IMO(International Maritime Organization)

Formerly known as the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization (IMCO), was

established in Geneva in 1948. The IMO's primary purpose is to develop and maintain a
comprehensive regulatory framework for shipping and its remit today includes safety,
environmental concerns, legal matters, technical co-operation, maritime security and the
efficiency of shipping. IMO is governed by an Assembly of members and is financially
administered by a Council of members elected from the Assembly. The work of IMO is
conducted through five committees and these are supported by technical subcommittees.
Member organizations of the UN organizational family may observe the proceedings of the IMO.
Observer status is granted to qualified non-governmental organizations.
IMO Works amongst many organizations and partners in order to protect safety of merchandise
activities in the high seas. Its campaigns and its reports this year focus on piracy.

Uniformity in Maritime Piracy Law

Given the diverging definitions of piracy in international and municipal legal systems,
some authors argue that greater uniformity in the law is required in order to strengthen
anti-piracy legal instruments. Of course such thing can be succeeded by ratification be
all the international community. Such event will with no doubt indicate its commitment
on the fight against piracy and the protection of the high seas. But since there are
countries such as the USA that has not yet ratified we cannot of course discuss over
international cooperation on the issue.

Mechanisms for Combating Piracy

A range of options exists for combating maritime piracy, but experts stress that most of
the current tactics are defensive in nature, and do not address the state instability that
allows piracy to flourish. The mechanisms used or under consideration in the most
prevalent piracy area, the Gulf of Aden, can be classified as follows:

 Onboard deterrents. Individual ships have adopted different onboard deterrents. Some
use rudimentary measures such as fire hoses, deck patrols, or even carpet tacks to repel
pirates. Others use a nonlethal electric screen with a loudspeaker system that emits a
pitch so painful it keeps pirates away. Most do not arm their crews, both because ship
workers tend to be unskilled and because many do not want to carry weapons, fearing
that pirates will target them if they are armed. Those ships willing to spend more to
protect their cargo employ private security guards onboard, though such guards have a
mixed record of piracy deterrence. Xe (formerly Blackwater), a private security
contractor, made a ship available for escorting ships through the Gulf of Aden, but in
January 2010 put the ship up for sale (HamptonRoads) since no shipping companies had
used it. The shipping industry has urged greater action on the part of the world's navies.

 Naval deployments. By January 2009, an estimated thirty ships were patrolling an

area of about 2.5 million square miles. More than a dozen countries--including Russia,
France, the United Kingdom, India, China, and the United States--had sent warships to
the Gulf of Aden to deter pirates. There were also two multinational anti-piracy patrols
in the area: the European Union's military operation, called EU NAVFOR, which began in
December 2008; and a multinational contingent, known as Combined Task Force 150,
which was originally tasked with counterterrorism efforts off the Horn of Africa. The
United States announced a new task force, CTF-151, in January 2009. Some analysts,
including a blogger for the U.S. Naval Institute, suggest that the new task force will allow
the United States to seek a non-Western approach to counterpiracy by partnering with
Eastern navies.

The success with which the navies in the Gulf of Aden have deterred attacks is
unclear. By some measures, pirates are finding it harder to hijack ships: The
 number of successful attacks has been reduced by roughly half since the patrols
began, and there was a six-month lull in successful attacks in the Gulf of Aden
from July until the end of 2009. Still, piracy attacks in 2009 were nearly double
the number in 2008, and pirates successfully hijacked four ships in a single week
at the start of 2010..

 Regional anti-piracy patrols. Some experts have suggested that East African and Middle
Eastern countries should work together to patrol the coast of Somalia and the Gulf of
Aden. Such patrols could be modeled on those that the navies of Indonesia, Malaysia,
Singapore, and Thailand conducted in the Malacca Strait. Western navies could provide
technical assistance and secondhand ships, he suggests. A contact group on Somali
piracy, convened by the United States at UN headquarters in January 2009, suggested
the creation of a regional counterpiracy coordination center. A similar information-
sharing center in Southeast Asia is widely credited with reducing piracy attacks.

 Establishing a Somali coast guard. creating an internationally administered coast guard

for Somalia, run by the African Union or the United Nations. Navies are not designed for
dealing with criminals, they are designed for fighting wars. In the absence of a police
force inside Somalia, this might be the most effective way of doing it. Such a project
would present tremendous challenges, however, from finding qualified individuals
within Somalia to determining when and how to hand over such a body to the Somalian
government. Under UN mandate as a more honorable cost of doing business than
ransom.

Experts unanimously stress that the only effective long-term piracy deterrent is a stable
state. When Somalia was briefly under the control of the Islamic Courts Union in 2006,
piracy stopped completely. Until recently, sovereignty prevented outside states from
targeting inland pirate infrastructure. A UN resolution passed on December 2, 2008,
allows states to enter Somalia's territorial waters in pursuit of pirates, and another
resolution passed on December 16, 2008, implicitly authorizes land pursuit.

Legal Complications to Combating Piracy

The inability of Somalia to apprehend and prosecute its own pirates creates numerous
legal complications for the outside states that are conducting antipiracy patrols in the
Gulf of Aden. Because so many nations have a vested interest when a ship is hijacked, it's
not immediately clear which country should prosecute pirates. "Consider a typical case: a
ship built in Japan, owned by a brass-plate company in Malta, controlled by an Italian,
managed by a company in Cyprus, chartered by the French, skippered by a Norwegian,
crewed by Indians, registered in Panama, financed by a British bank, carrying a cargo
owned by a multinational oil company, is attacked while transiting an international
waterway in Indonesian territory and arrested in the Philippines," writes journalist
Burnett in his book on piracy. Legal scholars recommend that apprehended pirates should
be prosecuted in the region they are arrested, but in the case of piracy in the Gulf of
Aden, East African countries have limited resources for their judicial systems.
" The United Nations attempted to address the prosecution of pirates in its 2008
resolutions on Somali piracy. None of its 2008 resolutions force a state to accept
suspected pirates, but the December 2 resolution does include a clause that goes toward
establishing a framework for prosecution. The clause, based on the 1988 UN Convention
for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation, obliges
coastal states who signed the convention to accept pirates for prosecution unless they can
explain why the convention does not apply. Some legal experts say the UN resolution
does not go far enough to establish a legal mechanism. Recommendations say that the
major shipping nations and regional states develop agreements to enable real-time
coordination for dealing with detainees, sorting out where they will be temporarily
detained and the venue for prosecution. They note that successful models for such
agreements already exist, such as the United States' maritime operational threat response
plan, and maritime narco-trafficking agreements in the Caribbean.

It's also possible to establish bilateral agreements on pirate prosecution. In mid-January

2009, the United States was working to conclude such an agreement with Kenya. The
European Union was working on similar agreements. There is a need to prosecute, but a
lot will depend on the individual circumstances of a capture and where are detained.  It
remains unclear how these agreements will be implemented. Even if you have an
agreement with a country, no one wants to be a dumping ground for difficult problem.
But maritime experts say that creating sufficient risk for pirates is critical to deterring and
reducing piracy.

Useful links:

http://www.un.org/en/ga/first/65/documentation.shtml

www.wikipedia.org

http://www.itlos.org/start2_en.html

http://www.un.org/en/documents/index.shtml

http://www.imo.org/Pages/home.aspx

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/