17/11/2009 Political Affairs and Democracy
Strasbourg, 17.11.2009 – “Over the past few years we have been witnessing a strong resurgence of piracy at sea, and European states are comparatively powerless to cope with the scale of this phenomenon,” Birgen Keles (Turkey, SOC) emphasised at a hearing held today in Brussels by the PACE Political Affairs Committee. “Military deterrence has had a definite impact in curbing attacks, but cannot be the sole solution to the problem of piracy,” she added. “The deep-seated causes of this phenomenon should be tackled, such as lack of good governance or poverty, and criminal sanctions should be used.”
Pirates evade prosecution, as virtually no country has modern criminal legislation on piracy and it is extremely complex to identify the appropriate jurisdiction. The participants in the hearing therefore consider that timely modernisation of the legal framework and introduction of clear rules identifying the state responsible for prosecution are essential for combating piracy.
The figures are alarming. The Maritime Bureau of the International Chamber of Commerce reports 358 attacks in 2009 as against 293 in 2008, 263 in 2007 and 236 in 2006. Pirates operate chiefly in the Gulf of Aden, through which one-third of the world’s maritime freight transits, in the south of the Red Sea and off the Somali coast. These figures might be an underestimation, since half of acts of piracy committed against merchant ships are thought to be unreported because the slow pace of investigations often deters shipping companies.
The hearing paid particular attention to the case of Somalia where the phenomenon has taken on disturbing proportions. In this country torn by civil war since the early 1980s, piracy has become a means of subsistence for the population.