PIRACY: IMPACTS ON MARITIME INDUSTRY
C. Shawn Goode
HLSS311 Boo2
May 24, 2014
PIRACY: IMPACTS ON MARITIME INDUSTRY
Maritime shipping has become one of the most important ways of commercial transport with the new markets and the increase into the world economies. At present more than 80% of world trade is conducted by sea . The Pacific historically has been one of the most active maritime trading grounds. Linking the American and Asian continents the majority of the world’s shipping passes through the seas of Southeast Asia, East Asia, and South Asia.
Piracy is the direct threat to maritime security for ship owners. Other crimes such as maritime terrorism and the use of phantom ships are far less common, although still a significant issue. The International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Center (IMB-PRC) defines piracy as “an act of boarding or attempting to board any ship with the intent to commit theft or any other crime and with the intent or capability to use force in the furtherance of that act”.
Several key factors show the degree in which a vessel may be threatened. First, when there seems to be a high level of traffic which may limit a vessel’s maneuverability. Maneuverability can be utilized to avoid another threatening vessel. Heavy traffic also allows for perpetrators to take cover behind other vessels before the attack. Second, the lack of maritime law enforcement patrolling waters has been significant in the growth of the attacks.
The growing number of large private vessels carrying valuable goods has become the pirates’ main target. These larger vessels have become easy targers as tey are larger, slow moving and difficult to protect. Most are run by skeleton crews which ensures that they are e...
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... on private ships has become one of the most effective ways to fend of piracy. Most guards are former military forces that board private ships to provide successful security measures against piracy.
When attackers are apprehended, many legal and judicial roadblocks the prosecution and incarceration of pirates is one of the most important elements in fighting against attacks. The support by all divisions to prosecute and incarcerate the offenders will play a key role in keeping the attackers at bay. Many times prosecutors will not try a case due to witness availability; the origin of the attacker is many times are not the country he is tried in, and the economic stakes the country undertakes to try the cases. The unknown expense may be the cost of not apprehending attackers and not prosecuting those and keeping them behind bars is far too costly to imagine.
...rates to succeed in the open waters alone. Pirates also lost their justification when the Spanish accepted the independence of their former colonies in South and Central America so piracy all but vanished when the governors in Cuba and Puerto Rico stopped providing support. The Navy’s relentless fighting contributed to a great decrease in piracy within ten years which not only led to greater United States prosperity but that of all nations with commerce paths through that region.
The Strait of Malacca remains a hot spot for piracy today. In recent years the area it has seen decreased due to patrolling by Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore navy forces, and increased level of onboard security on ships.
2.) The Asian sea trading network was traditionally divided into three distinct sections that each handled certain types of goods. With the arrival of the Europeans, these zones became blurred as there was an increase of trade between each zone and Europeans bolstered the textile and spice trade with their efforts in joining the trade system. Due to large amounts of trade, trading factories and ports were established all throughout Southeast Asia, establishing permanent points of trade, widening the area that the network influenced.
Modern piracy has touched nearly every corner of the globe and has increased with globalization. The tentacles of piracy now extend from South America to the South China Sea. The greatest numbers of piracy incidents occur along maritime commercial trade routes. Since China dominates the world’s container shipping industry, the South China Sea has become a hotspot for piracy (Kraska 2011). The prominence of cargo activity increases opportunity for pirates and indisputably triggered the sixty- nine incidents of piracy that were reported in 2009 in the South China Sea (Kraska 2011).
In this paper, I will attempt to describe the piracy problem in China, discuss how the Chinese government is dealing with it, present the global effect, and finally arrive at what would be an ethical solution to piracy fitting for China's situation.
Whatever you do, safe is first. Ocean shipping probably will meet with the pirates that could lead economic loss.
Tucked away in history lies the world of piracy, too far to be fully reached, comprehended or related to. They are distance stories containing horrific facts and impossible realities. It is no secret that piracy has found a home in Western pop culture; the romance of mystery and drama seems to follow any pirate image. Historically speaking some scholars have rejected this romantic view yet, for every academic voice there exists a Jack Sparrow or Long John Silver. Conflict surrounds the truth of piracy as Historians continue to see piracy in light of historical contexts while social culture relies on the dramatized romantic view. Because of this, only when these studies and stories are brought together a new insight develops. By analyzing texts, such as the primary source The Buccaneers of America by Exquemelin, historian Marcus Rediker’s Villains of All Nations and the famous Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, romance and piracy are brought together and surprisingly developed by historians and fiction-writers alike.
Grouchier, C & Walton, L. 2013. The maritime world: The Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean World. Vol 2. London & New York.
The Golden Age of Piracy began around 1650, and ended around 1730. Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea, but can include acts committed on land, in the air, or in other major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against persons traveling on the same vessel as the criminal. The term has been used throughout history to refer to raids across land borders by non-state agents. A pirate is one who commits robberies at sea, usually without being allotted to do so by any particular nation. The usual crime for piracy can include being hung, or publically executed. Some of the most famous pirates who were killed either because of piracy, or because of natural causes, are Barbarossa, Stede Bonnet, Anne Bonney, Sir Francis Drake, Captain Greaves, William Kidd, Jean Laffite, Sir Henry Morgan, Mary Read, and Giovanni da Verrazano.
Eurasian trade when conditions along the Silk Road were unfavorable. For this reason, the geographical context of the Silk Road must be thought of in the broadest possible terms, including sea rout...
More than forty thousand merchant ships, and countless number of smaller coastal craft, ply world oceans which comprise nearly seventy percent of the earth’s surface. Each year approximately ten million containers of cargo, containing raw materials to finished goods are transported by seas. The ships are owned by different states, private companies or individuals and manned by mixture of seafarers from different countries, mixed together from various nationalities. These ships are perhaps the most autonomous entities on earth as rule of law allows frequent change of their allegiance or identity by choosing a flag to suit their requirement.
Although Britain cannot be blamed though for lack of trying, piracy still exists today. Yet, because the act continues at sea often far from land, it gains little media attention, and therefore less action from governments. China, despite being a number one producer of pirates, continues to deny that there is a problem while at the same time often pardoning those who are caught. Countries such as Indonesia and Philippines, which have been hardest hit in the past few years by pirates, are looking for international assistance. The West is, of course, looked to for solutions yet choose seemingly chooses to turn a blind eye, perhaps in the name of diplomacy. When the world is ready to combat the perpetual problem of piracy, it may discover that by intertwining tougher policies aimed at dealing with piracy with current or future trade negotiations, productive steps can be taken to initiate plans to curtail modern day sea wolves who prey on the helpless. The suggestion of ‘Piracy Charters’ will be discussed further as the means of which to add the topic of to multilateral agreements.
The Horn of Africa is one of the most important hubs for maritime traffic in the world today. Raw goods, including oil, that are departing the nations of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East must pass through this area in route to Europe and the West. Three-fourths of the Earth is covered in water and roughly eighty percent of global economic goods are transported via commercial maritime shippers. The volume of maritime trade is highly congested in this region. Ships must pass through either the Gulf of Aden and ultimately to the Mediterranean or proceed south from the Arabian Sea towards the southern trip of Africa via the Indian Ocean. Piracy in the region has increasing dramatically in the last decade, largely because Somalia and Yemen can be considered failed states. The lack of government involvement in suppressing pirate activities has indirectly allowed them to flourish. The sheer size of the area, roughly two and a half billion square miles, goes predominantly unpatrolled. The scope of the problem piracy poses pales in comparison to the size of the ocean in which they successfully operate.
The ISM Code’s basic content is to increase safety at sea. The obvious main element of this is to p...
The report classify the threats into: (1) Piracy and armed robbery, (2) terrorist acts, (3) the illicit trafficking in arms and weapons of mass destruction, (4) the illicit trafficking in narcotics, (5) smuggling and