Piracy in Southeast Asia – Status, Issues, and Responsibilities. (book review)
Title :- Piracy in Southeast Asia – Status, Issues, and Responsibilities.
By :- Derek Johnson & Mark Valencia (Editor)
Published :-International Institute for Asian Studies, Netherlands & Singapore (2005), Paperback (160 pages)
Outline :- A collection of papers, complete with references on the history, nature and particularly official responses to piracy, particularly around Indonesian waters. Some interesting extracts:
- Weekly reports of attacks are placed on the IMB website < www.icc-ccs.org> every Tuesday. Quarterly and annual reports analyze attacks.
- A UNCLOS article on “armed robbery against ships” in which the IMO legally distinguishes as acts of piracy carried out “within a State’s jurisdiction”
- For the IMB, piracy is “an act of boarding any vessel with the intent to comit theft or any other crime and with the intent and capability to use force in the furtherance of that act”…. Attacks on a ship for political or environmental reasons qualify as piracy.
- The dangers of piracy thus include a direct threat to the lives and welfare of the citizens of a variety of flagged states, a direct economic impact in terms of fraud, stolen cargoes, delayed trips, and increased insurance premiums, the undermining and weakening of political stability by encouraging official corruption, and the potential to cause major environmental disaster.
- Since the Bali bombing, war-risk insurance status has applied to Indonesian ports, but not to passage through the archipelago.
- Some countries are unwilling to commit to prosecution persons caught in their waters for acts committed in another country’s waters. And for countries with a recent colonial history and relatively newly won independence, as well as ineffective navies and disputed or porous maritime boundaries, the convention can be seen as underscoring their inability to fulfill their obligations, or even compromising their national sovereignty.
- The Indonesian navy has about 115 ships that can patrol about a third of the countries waters.
Easy and informative read