Contemporary Maritime Piracy: Five Obstacles to Ending Somali Piracy
| Author | Sarah Percy,Anja Shortland |
| Date | 01 February 2013 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12043 |
| Published date | 01 February 2013 |
Contemporary Maritime Piracy: Five
Obstacles to Ending Somali Piracy
Sarah Percy
Political Science and International Relations, University of Western Australia
Anja Shortland
Economics, Brunel University
The persistence of the Somali piracy problem is undeni-
able, and so too is the desire of policy makers to end
the practice. David Cameron has stated that the ‘extent
of the hijack and ransom of ships round the Horn of
Africa is a complete stain on our world’(BBC, 2011) and
there are three multinational naval missions, alongside
assorted other national and international forces, patrol-
ling Somali waters trying to bring pirates to heel. It has
been estimated that the total annual cost of piracy annu-
ally is between US$7 billion and US$12 billion (Bowden,
2010). The cost of counterpiracy efforts alone has been
estimated as US$2 billion (Hurlburt, 2011), yet year-on-
year pirate attacks have continued to rise. There were 22
attacks by Somali pirates in 2000, rising to 108 in 2008
and 216 in 2009, 218 in 2010 and 236 in 2011 (ICC Inter-
national Maritime Bureau, 2012). If naval missions are not
deterring pirates (Percy and Shortland, 2013) then why
not, and what can be done to solve the problem?
The multinational efforts to end piracy are consider-
able. There are naval counterpiracy forces from the EU
(Operation Atalanta), NATO (Operation Ocean Shield), the
US and 24 other countries (CTF-151), as well as individual
deployments from China, India, Iran, Japan, Malaysia and
Russia. Several UN agencies as well as local regional
organizations like the African Union and the League of
Arab States are assisting politically. Indeed, the organiza-
tion Oceans Beyond Piracy identifies five different types
of counterpiracy activity: maritime operations; informa-
tion sharing; rule of law capacity building; operational
capacity building; and industry self-protection. Given the
large amount of money being spent, the number of ini-
tiatives involved and the fact that there are only esti-
mated to be 5,000 pirates (Percy and Shortland, 2013;
York, 2012), why is piracy still increasing?
This article argues that five main obstacles stand in
the way of effective control of Somali piracy: lack of
alternate employment; local corruption; the nature of the
victims of piracy; the practices of some shipping compa-
nies and insurers; and the fact that enforcement efforts
push pirates to innovate, which in turn worsens the
problem. Lurking behind all these obstacles is the fact
that Somali piracy is now entrenched and increasingly
embedded in local society. As a result, this article does
not consider the causes of Somali piracy per se; it starts
from the position that the time to deal with root causes
1
has long since passed.
These five obstacles vary in their degrees of intractabil-
ity. The most intransigent obstacles are those associated
with Somalia itself: poverty, lack of alternative employ-
ment, local corruption and the nature of piracy’s victims
are all structural problems that are unlikely to change
quickly or easily. The remaining two ‘external’obstacles
(shipping and the unintended effects of law enforce-
ment) are easier to change and policy efforts should be
focused in these areas. This article begins with a very
brief outline of the origins and nature of the Somali
piracy business before examining each of the five obsta-
cles in turn. It concludes by arguing that it is essential to
recognize that the outlook for stopping Somali piracy is
bleak and proposes some realistic policy alternatives.
The origins and nature of Somali piracy
Somali piracy arose, essentially, because of three interre-
lated factors: the protracted nature of Somali civil conflict
following the state’s collapse in 1991; the close proximity
of Somalia to major shipping lanes; and a response to
foreign fishing vessels. There is a debate as to whether
Somali piracy began as a response to illegal fishing,
2
whereby Somalis chased foreign vessels out of the area
or charged ‘license’fees to let trawlers operate in territo-
rial waters. The extortion of ‘protection money’from the
regional dhow trade was also long established, but from
2005 the set of potential targets was widened to foreign
merchant ships and piracy transformed into hijack and
ransom –whereby pirates seize and hold the ship, cargo
and crew until a ransom is paid.
Somalia’s geography may appear to present a signifi-
cant obstacle to controlling Somali piracy, in that its
proximity to busy shipping lanes can never be altered.
Global Policy (2013) 4:1 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12043 ©2013 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy Volume 4 . Issue 1 . February 2013 65
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