African
states adopt regional anti-piracy agreement
Thursday,
June 27, 2013 G. Redd at 3:54 PM ET
[JURIST]
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official
website] on Thursday welcomed [statement] a regional agreement
announced Wednesday to deter piracy in the Gulf of Guinea. The Summit
of the Gulf of Guinea Heads of State and Government [All Africa
report] closed with the adoption of the International
Maritime Organization [official website] Code of Conduct concerning the Prevention and Repression
of Piracy, Armed Robbery against Ships, and Illegal Maritime Activities in West
and Central Africa [text, PDF]. This development is seen as
especially significant because it is a regional solution that is not limited to
one or two countries. The summit was attended by the Economic Community of Central
African States (ECCAS), the Economic Community of West
African States (ECOWAS) [official websites] and the Gulf of
Guinea Commission (GGC). The Secretary-General has encouraged all member
nations to ratify the agreement individually in order to unify local and
regional efforts.
This
is a major development in the ongoing struggle to unify anti-piracy task forces
across deeply divided regions. The UN Security Council [official website]
last November condemned [statement; press release] piracy and acts of armed robbery
against vessels off the coast of Somalia. It urged the international community
to develop
a comprehensive response [JURIST report] to discourage these
acts. This summit is one of the first to do so, in response to resolution
2077 [text]. The resolution called on member states to enact
domestic legislation that criminalizes piracy and to assist Somalia in
prosecuting pirates. Also last November UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan
Eliasson stressed the need to address
the causes of maritime piracy [JURIST report] with a
"multi-dimensional approach". Addressing the UN Security Council,
Eliasson noted three areas of concern that warrant immediate action: 1) better
coordination, information-sharing and trust-building among countries and
agencies involved in counter-piracy operations; 2) stronger capacity to
prosecute piracy cases and imprison those convicted in accordance with
international human rights standards; and 3) the establishment of a framework
governing the use of privately contracted armed security personnel on board
vessels. The month previous the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court of Hamburg issued
sentences [JURIST report] for 10 Somalis who were involved in the
hijacking the German freighter MS Taipan off the coast of Somalia two years
ago.
