International Journal of Maritime Crime & Security

This article discusses the use of PCASPs as an alternative or additional layer of protection on board ships in the fight against maritime piracy and armed robbery at sea from an international law perspective based on legal positivism. A concern is that clear-cut, international legal rules are missing on PCASPs. A particular concern is the use of force by PCASPs.

The IMO, the shipping- and PMSC industry have had to resort to soft-law instruments and self-regulations. The perceived lack of legal rules concerning PCASPs and PMSCs has resulted in a lot of criticism. But does international law on maritime piracy need to develop binding international legal rules’ that are directly applicable to PCASPs? My findings are that the existing legal framework, in the Law of the Sea, SOLAS Convention, customary international law on self-defence together with the non-binding IMO guidelines and the shipping industry’s and PMSC’s self-regulations, as implemented by national laws, gives the necessary framework to adequately address the issue of PCASPs as protection against maritime piracy.

The article describes maritime piracy, piracy hotspots and how interventions against piracy differ according to regions. It analyses the current legal framework on maritime piracy and armed robbery at sea in UNCLOS and the SUA Convention, flag-state jurisdiction and national laws. It defines “soft-law” and goes through regulations on PCASPs from the Montreux Document and ICoC to regulations that directly address the use of PCASPs on board ships, as the IMO Guidelines, ISO Standards, the industries standard agreements and the Guidance on the use of force.

Climate change is predicted to have an extremely destructive effect on Bangladesh. Natural disasters may take place even more frequently and be greater in magnitude. A rise in sea levels could submerge a considerable proportion of the country. The legal regulations per specific aspects of maritime law are the priority of lawyers as natural risks like rising sea levels, storm surges, or tsunami waves, the pollution of the marine environment all represent a severe threat to coastal inhabitants. Global climate change will thus not only cause environmental degradation but will drive massive social changes as innumerable people migrate from devastated areas. This might further overstretch inadequate infrastructure and governance mechanisms and will lead both to a collapse in living standards and a rise in social disorder. Thus, the article contributes to the expansion of the current regime whereby using the bay water cooling atomic energy plants prevents its use for fish farming purposes, or an oil spill on the high seas pollutes beaches that are essential for tourism within the coastal zone. Such activities destroy our natural climate and change the water level, and promote ocean acidification, ocean stratification, coral bleaching, change species; distributions and make other biological changes to the sea and littoral including the discharge of ballast wastewater which may carry alien invasive species.

This article is a distillation of the dissertation submitted for the author’s MSc in Maritime Operations and Management at City, University of London, submitted in 2019.
 

In the summer of 2019, a Bulk Carrier of 22,000GT with a complement of 21 crew members was at anchor within the territorial waters of a Gulf of Guinea coastal state, 2.5 n.m. from the breakwater entrance to the port, awaiting daylight so the ship could enter the port and commence the discharge of its cargo. At midnight with all the regular security measures in force for the anchorage area, a group of armed men boarded the ship and proceeded to kidnap nine seamen. The kidnappers abducted the nine-crew comprising the ship’s Master, Chief Engineer, Third Officer, Third Engineer, Chief Cook, and four ratings, all of them Filipinos. It was later proven the kidnappers came from a neighbouring state, and during their captivity, the nine men were held on a small island off the borders of the two states.  All parties concerned were informed of the incident, and a company specialised in negotiating was appointed. The nine hostages were finally released after 41 days in captivity. Piracy affects shipping for centuries, with some periods of peace. It has returned more robust and aggressive, profoundly affecting shipping in specific geographical areas, exposing maritime trade and the seafarers’ lives in danger.
 

From 2008 to 2012, piracy off the coast of East Africa drew the attention of the global community. The measures taken have suppressed piracy, and the incidents have dramatically reduced. On the other hand, piracy and kidnapping incidents in the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa have risen over the past years. The global community seems to tolerate the insecurity in the area, and only a few measures by the European Union and the United States have been introduced. The regional countries have announced measures, so did the continental African Union organisation and some local states individually, but all these efforts seem to be un-synchronised, and the actions of one party disorientate the others. The causation of piracy is not at sea: it is ashore. The spotlights of the initiatives should focus on the mainland. The global community has the expertise, experience, and mechanisms to fight this ancient crime.
 

Both the academic and maritime communities have numerous papers about countering piracy, but none that the author has found is based on the details of one incident; they tend to focus on theoretical aspects. The author, being a permanent member of the Crisis Management Team of a shipping company, endured the hijacking of a vessel under its management in the Gulf of Guinea, and part of the vessel’s crew was taken hostage and moved ashore into the criminals’ hideout. It then became a race against time involving specialised negotiators, the P&I Club of the ship, and a PMSC to negotiate the ransom and its delivery and release of the crew as quickly as possible.
 

Apart from the first-hand experience of being part of the Crisis Management Team for more than 40-days and nights of a ship hijacking and hostage negotiation process, the author has researched the background widely to piracy and specifically its impact in West Africa.  He interviewed members of the crew held hostage and spoken with experts in the field.
 

The principal reason for writing the dissertation and this article was to share the experiences and insights of a hijacking in the Gulf of Guinea, from the perspective of a shipping company with ships visiting the Gulf of Guinea on a regular basis, so that others may learn from the experiences and hopefully prepare seafarers more effectively for this maritime peril.