Part I: Pirates in the Gulf of Aden: “The enemies of mankind?”
by Isaac Kamola
The impoverished Somali teenager, wearing a waterproof jumpsuit, was handcuffed and chained at the waist…Nevertheless, Mr Wal-i-Musi, who told one Maersk Alabama crew member that he dreamt of traveling to America, beamed with delight as he was met in New York by a host of TV cameras. – James Bone, The London Times, April 22, 2009
When I first started handling pirate cases, I thought these guys would be like kidnappers, strong, you know, and really crafty and sophisticated,” Mr. Kadima [a Kenyan lawyer] said. “But not these guys. They’re just ordinary. If anything, they’re expressionless. – quoted by Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times, April 24, 2009
During 2008 and 2009 reports of Somali pirates captured the imagination of many in the U.S. and around the world.This made-for-TV spectacle reached a crowning height in April 2009 when U.S. Navy snipers shot three pirates holding captain Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama hostage onboard a lifeboat.Journalists, academics and policy researchers, however, were quick to point out that piracy is not only an oddly anachronistic spectacle but also an economic and security threat.According to the International Maritime Bureau, in 2008 pirates attacked more than one hundred ships off the coast of Somalia netting a yearly windfall of approximately $30 million in ransom money.Some observers express concern that pirates in the Gulf of Aden might be supporting groups like al-Shabaab.While this link to terrorism remains speculative and hotly debated, the best evidence so far points to piracy’s popularity as resulting from the extreme poverty in the region.For example, Sugule Ali—a pirate onboard the Faina, a Ukrainian ship carrying military hardware to Sudan via Kenya—stated that his goal was “to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters” and that “[w]e only want money so we can protect ourselves from hunger” (quoted in: Gettleman 2008).
While pirates have been seizing smaller vessels off the Somalia coast for a number of years, only when pirates started ransoming increasingly larger ships did the world’s superpowers take notice.In 2008, the UN issued a historic four resolutions targeting piracy in the Gulf of Aden, including Resolutions 1816 making it possible for ships to pursue pirates within Somalia’s territorial water and Resolution 1838 encouraging nations to deploy naval vessels and aircraft to the area.To this end, NATO, the European Union Naval Force, the U.S., Iran, Pakistan, China, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Russia and other nations all dispatched considerable military assets to the region. By any measure, this show of force amounts to a substantial intervention.However, while the world’s superpowers have quickly responded to confront piracy, this effort stands in sharp contrast to a long tradition of refusing to intervene in a number of more devastating conflicts, including the genocides in Darfur and Rwanda and the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.The contrast between the response of the “international community” to piracy versus their failure to intervene to prevent violence elsewhere raises a number of questions concerning what international law is designed to protect.
On the one hand, laws against piracy represent one of the oldest examples of international law.For centuries pirates have been defined as hostes humani generis, or “the enemies of humankind.”As a consequence, states possessed the jurisdiction to execute pirates without trial.Similarly, the United National Convention on the Law of the Sea (1983) mandates that every state “co-operate to the fullest possible extent in the repression of piracy on the high seas.”This document gave all states the right of “universal jurisdiction” meaning that they could “capture and punish pirates under its own municipal laws even when the accused pirate is not a national of the state and the act of piracy was neither committed in its territorial waters nor against its national” (Passman, 13). Today, many of the pirates captured off the coast of Somalia are being tried in civilian courts in the U.S., France and Kenya.While Abduhl Wali-i-Musi (the lone pirate to survive the seizing of the Maersk Alabama) is being tried in New York, Kenya has become the preferred destination for pirates captured in this region.In addition to this established legal precedent for states to prosecute pirates, the fact that piracy takes place in international waters means that laws against it can be enforced without violating nation sovereignty.
This raises an interesting paradox, however. On the one hand, the hard task of global governance and enforcing international law is relatively easy in the case of piracy. On the other hand, piracy is a relatively minor issue compared to the perpetrators of mass violence—including governments—allowed to operate unconstrained by international law. The enforcement of international law against piracy, in other words, appears focused on securing the massive amounts of wealth flowing just off the Somali coast.14% of world trade—including 26% of all oil exports—passes through the Gulf of Aden on route to (or from) the Suez Canal.Furthermore, foreign trawlers have over-fished the Somali coast and other ships have disposed of toxic waste by dumping in the Gulf of Aden; little has been done to address these issues.Despite the fact that 75% of Somalis live on less than $2 a day, none of the UN resolution or plans for international intervention address the huge economic asymmetries that make piracy an attractive option for many living on the Somali coast.
The issue of piracy in the Gulf of Aden, therefore, raises a number of questions regarding the politics of international law and humanitarian intervention.Is international law, like so much of domestic law, simply designed to protect private property from those who might otherwise take it?Is it possible to conceptualize a humanitarian intervention that would create and enforce greater economic equality?Right now it seems like the fight against piracy is akin to calling shoplifters “the enemies of humankind” while letting the mass murders go free.
Isaac Kamola is a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College. He can be reached at: Isaac.A.Kamola@dartmouth.edu
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Gettleman, Jeffrey. 2008. Pirates Tell Their Side: They Want Only Money. The New York Times, October 1, A6.
Passman, Michael. 2008. Protections Afforded to Capture Pirates Under the Law of War and International Law. Tulane Maritime Law Journal 33(1), Winter 2008.