SEEKING EEEECTIVENESSEOR THE CRACKDOWN OEPIRACY AT SEAZou KeyuanPiracy is traditionally regarded as hostis humani generis, the enemy of the humanrace. Pirates commit acts of murder, robbery, plunder, rape or other villainousdeeds at sea, cruelly against humanity. Piracy is punishable wherever encountered,'Since the early 1990s, piracy has resurged and even increased in some places in theworld, particularly in Southeast Asia, According to a report prepared by theInternational Chamber of Commerce's (ICC) International Maritime Bureau PiracyReporting Center (IMB-PRC), between 1 January and 30 June 1999, there were 300piracy incidents around the world. The total number of piratical incidents from1984 to the end of March 2002 was 2,626,2 According to a report issued by theInternational Maritime Bureau (1MB), pirate attacks have tripled in the last decade.The number of attacks in the first quarter of 2003 had already equaled the totalnumber of recorded pirate attacks for the whole of 1993,3 During that time.Southeast Asia was categorized as one of the most active piracy zones with seven key"pirate-prone areas,"^ In 2000 alone, piracy in this region accounted for 65 percentof total global incidents. In 2002, Indonesia's were the world's most pirate-infestedwaters, with 22 of the 87 attacks reported worldwide (there were 32 in SoutheastAsian seas) between January and March,5 For such reasons, the UN GeneralAssembly, for the first time in 1998, called on all states, in particular coastal statesin affected regions, to take all necessary and appropriate measures to prevent andcombat incidents of piracy and armed robbery at sea. Following the 9/11 attacks,piracy has allegedly been connected to maritime terrorism, and the two have sincebeen mentioned together in mass media and government statements,^ Moreover, theBush administration has deemed terrorism just as immoral as piracy, the slave tradeand genocide and some believe that piracy constitutes a modern threat to worldpeace and security,''Sea lanes in Southeast Asia are of vital interest to East Asian countries. Morethan half of the world's merchant fleet capacity sails through the Straits of Malacca,Journal of International Affairs, FallAVinter 2005, vol, 59, no, 1, FALLAV INTER 2005 | 117© The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New YorkZou KeyuanSunda and Lombok and the South China Sea,^ More than 10,000 vessels of greaterthan 10,000 dead weight tons (dwt) move southward through the South China Seaannually, with well over 8,000 proceeding in the opposite direction,9 In addition,with the rapid growth of the East Asian economy, the recent trend toward greaterintra-Asian trade (relative to trade with Europe and North America) results in moreshipping in the littoral waters of SoutheastEnvironmental concerns Asia and the South China Sea, 10 Thus the seabear relevance to piracy, •'o^^^^ •" ^he region are usually regarded as11 • J 1 • economic lifelines for East Asian countries,and have raised alarm m , , , ^particularly Japan, However, piracy endangersthe world community. the safety of navigation. Recent cases, includ-ing the Cheung Son and the Tenyu, demonstrated that pirates hijacked merchantvessels, killed crew members and/or robbed valuables on board the ships,"Environmental concerns also bear some relevance to piracy and have raised alarmin the world community,'2 A piratical attack on an oil tanker, for instance, could fea-sibly cause an oil spill disaster. It goes without saying that the potential for a cata-strophic accident involving one or more vessels carrying environmentally destructivecargoes is huge. Incidentally, many piratical occurrences have taken place in areas ofnatural beauty or of international environmental significance, such as the SouthChina Sea, According to one statistic, over 25 percent of the pirate attacks recordedin the Violence at Sea database of the IMB-PRC are against some variety of tanker.Finally, a new form of piracy is on the horizon, one that involves the hijackingof entire ships. There is wide speculation that these piratical incidents, whichoccurred in East Asia, involved organized criminals since such large-scale theft, andthe subsequent resale of cargo, requires impressive resources and sophisticated plan-ning. Individual pirates do not have these capabilities,'^ This represents one of manyconcerns that complicate modern day anti-piracy campaigns.IMPROVING THE INTERNATIONAL LEGAL REGIMELaw enforcement on piracy is mainly governed by international law, includingthe 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and other relevantinternational treaties. However, with the passing of time, the existing legal regimehas demonstrated a lack of effectiveness in cracking down on contemporary piracy.There are two major areas that need to be amended and improved.Definitional ProblemThe term "piracy" usually refers to a broad range of violent acts at sea, andUNCLOS defines it as:Piracy consists of any of the following acts: (a) any illegal acts of violenceor detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by118 1 JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRSSeeking Effectiveness for the Crackdown of Piracy at Seathe crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, anddirected: (i) on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or againstpersons or property on board such ship or aircraft; (ii) against a ship, air-craft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State;(b) any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of anaircraft with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft; (c) anyact of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in sub-paragraph (a) or (b),'''This convention's definition consists of five elements: (1) the acts complainedabout must be crimes of violence such as robbery, murder, assault or rape; (2) com-mitted on the high seas, meaning beyond the land territory, the territorial sea orother territorial jurisdiction of a given state; (3) by a private ship, or a public ship,which through mutiny or otherwise is no longer under the discipline and effectivecontrol of the state or party that owns it; (4) for private ends; and (5) from one shipor aircraft to another so that at least two ships are involved,'5However, the definition provided for in UNCLOS has limitations in respect tothe phenomenon of piracy. First, it defines piracy as only for "private ends," thoughsome have argued that
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