The bizarre case of pirates' human rights
We are told that the reasons we have such a hard time stopping the pirates is that our forces have a very hard time locating them in the vast sea. An odd statement, given that the pirates have no trouble locating our ships in the same sea, and they have no drones, satellites, AWACS, and all the other means of modern technology. Moreover, we hardly need to look for them; they present themselves to us, quite regularly. Most recently they captured six ships with a few weeks.
The main reason pirates roam freely is only whispered in the corridors of power, because it is very politically incorrect to openly state that pirates are protected by a radical interpretation of human rights. The various navies involved are operating (or more precisely, are not operating) because of one or more of the following points:
- Do not capture the pirates because if you do, they will have to be brought to trial in some national court. There are no international courts in which they can be tried. To try them, you will need evidence that will hold up in such courts. Most ship hands do not have the kind of police training needed to collect evidence properly, observe the chain of evidence, and so on.
- Once brought to your homeland, the pirates may seek--and possibly be granted--asylum. (In several European countries one can gain asylum by showing that he or she is coming from a part of the world in which there is a sufficient level of indiscriminant violence that one's life would be in danger by remaining there. One need not show that he or she was specifically persecuted.) Thus, courts may let them walk and you would then have dozens of Somali marauders roaming free in your country.
- You will be unable to ship them back to Somalia for trial because there they would likely be subject to torture or execution.
- Piracy is a crime and crimes are a matter for the police to deal with, not armed forces. But national police forces have no jurisdiction, a high seas catch-22.
- Pirates cannot be shot when they close in on your ship because they may be fishermen engaging in their peaceful business. The fact that they are armed cannot be used as evidence because in these parts of the world practically all men are armed.
- If you fail to respect their rights, you may be hauled in front of one or more of your national courts, the European Court of Human Rights, condemned by United Nations, and excoriated by the parts of the media and by human rights activists.
Ignored is the fact that human rights--which ought to be observed--must be balanced with concerns for the common good, as they are in the domestic courts of all free nations. No reasonable interpretation of rights allows them to trump all other considerations, especially gross violations of the safety of innocent people going about their business, business which, in the case of the Maersk Alabama, consisted of carrying humanitarian aid destined for Somalia! Thus, while even pirates, if captured, should not be tortured or held indefinitely without a hearing, a ship's national sovereignty should be extended to an area around it. Any armed party entering this zone, should be asked to leave or surrender; if they refuse and do not heed a warning shot, they should be treated as a hostile force. Civilian airlines have armed marshals. Our commercial ships and cruise ships may need some of those now, equipped with a 007 license.
At least the way I see it, to treat human rights on the high seas the way we do at home is a much preferred alternative to the desperate suggestion--now increasingly mentioned--that we ought to invade Somalia, in order to get at the pirates' bases. Such a land-based operation is surely going to involve killing many innocent Somalis, aside from inflicting a considerable number of casualties on our own troops.
Amitai Etzioni professor of international relations at The George Washington University and the author of Security First (Yale 2007). For more, go here.
What I really don't get is that it seems the solution could be a practical one. These pirates arrive in small boats and pull up to ships that are like a straight up-and-down wall. They then climb up several feet, unmolested, and presumably unnoticed (which is their most vulnerable time). How about some alarms? How about equipment that would automatically drop anything into the water that was on the side of the ship when they are at sea?
It seems like a no-brainer to me that they should not be able to scale the side of the ship in the first place if they just had some relatively inexpensive technology (what isn't inexpensive compared to millions of dollars in ransom and navies coming to the rescue and people getting killed?)
What is going on? How about some problem-solving here? The passive way these companies are dealing with this amazes me.
April 21, 2009 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
I can imagine a scenario where pirates claim to be in distress and are brought on board. All ships at sea are required to give imediate assistance at need. How would you know the difference between a boat of pirates and a boat with a blown engine?
Once a threat is positively discerned any and all means should be fair game. But then I'm one of those jerks who thinks if someone breaks into a house shooting to kill is the most prudent course of action and it is up to the dead guy to prove the shooter wrong. I'm funny like that.
April 21, 2009 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are so many questions involved with this story that we need to go down many lanes. I heard a caller on left wing radio suggest that some of these shipping companies are engaged in money laundering. Another story has an Italian journalist, Ilaria Alpi, who was investigating an Italian company/mafia perhaps engaged in toxic dumping found dead in Somalia in 1994 with her cameraman.
Another story has warlords being bankrolled to create havoc and that they DO have very sophisticated equipment in the pirate town of Eyl.
April 21, 2009 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
At the very least they have confirmed clandestine airstrips and spotter planes.
April 22, 2009 12:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
It doesn't amaze me CVille. Know I see another possibility. The insurance companies were apart of something fishy here. Why would you willingly write a policy on something you knew was likely to happen. This whole situation smacks of fraud. These tiny old fishing boats can hijack a tanker? Come on. I don't know exactly what's going on but we are not being giving the whole story. Where is the money flowing. Are you telling me they can't trace the bills. How can the Somali pirates spend the money with out getting caught? Why the easy pay outs? I telling you something fishy was going on here....
April 21, 2009 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent question. The Saudis were in no hurry at all to get back their tank filled with crude, were they ? The Saudi navy did nothing despite being very expensively fitted out with the latest gear.
I have looked for a comprehensive description of the insurance limitations ... so far cannot find one.
April 21, 2009 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Originally, the pirates ransom demand was $12.50 a barrel. The Saudis only started negotiating when oil started to spike ($41 at XMAS; $57 in early January). Parachute drop of $3 million ($1.50 a barrel) on January 9th. Hoocoodanode.
Timing is everything.
April 21, 2009 10:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Suggestion : put captured pirates to work on the ship that captures them. They can wash decks, wash dishes, do laundry ...
Has no one but I read the Aubrey-Maturin books of Patrick O'Brian ??
Christ's Blood, man - Captain Aubrey would know how to handle these affairs.
April 21, 2009 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh boy.
Etzioni apparently has never been to sea and certainly not around Asia and Africa.
Ever seen those maps the TV stations occasionally put up showing every airplane currently flying? That is what your surface radar looks like when sailing close to these coasts. At any given time their might be hundreds to thousands of boats out and about, mostly fishing boats but also dhows or junks depending on where you are. They may or may not have running lights. Are we expecting these crews to jump to action every time they pass by some fishing boat?
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Hmm Zeno? If it was just a matter of tracing bills the cocaine cartels would be out of business.
As to hijacking a tanker from a small boat. You have to remember that at any given time a third or more of an ocean going ship are liable to be asleep and of those who are awake most are likely to be down below working in the engine room or galley. They simply don't have the crew to patrol and monitor the often very long very low-riding ships.
As to the insurance companies. Only a tiny fraction of ships are being attacked. It is easy to say 'well just install safety equipment' but when the bill per ship starts rising into the tens of thousands of dollars per ship you rapidly get to the point where it makes monetary sense just to pay off the pirates or reroute your shipping.
As to protecting the side of the ship you would have to find some way of doing that that would still enable to you load and offload the ship.
Plus you have to wonder about the reliability of the crew which are typically made up with men from low wage countries with not much willingness to risk their lives so that the Names at Lloyd's don't have to payoff some Spanish or Indian shipping magnate. The Maersk ship was an aberration, relatively few ships have all American crews flying under the American flag because the shipping companies can't afford them or the regulations they bring with them.
I read in the paper that about a third of all merchant sailors world wide were Filipino. How would you like to be the guy hiring if you knew the new crew member would have access to ships defenses? How do you know he is not a member of the AQ affiliated MILF? If every ship in the world was be presumed to be armed and ready you effectively make every sea-port world wise an open door for infiltrating armed terrorists or running guns.
You want a couple dozen Mumbai massacres going forward? Just make sure every merchant ship afloat has guns on board. And don't engage in fantasies that they could be kept locked until needed. By the time you know they are needed it would be too late. When I was in the Navy we always had one armed guy patrolling the ship backed up by an on call security patrol of six to eight guys. But I don't think we could have kept a small group from getting aboard the ship and taking over the bridge. They wouldn't be able to hold it, or actually take control and wouldn't get away. But the odds of being able to repel them initially would be vanishingly small on any overcast night given the normal amount of fishing boats in those waters.
April 21, 2009 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Al Qaida has MILFs? No wonder our guys couldn't find AQ in the mountains of Pakistan.
Your points are well taken. These are shipping boats, not fitted out for self defense.
Etzioni's points about the human rights issues at hand are probably well-taken, too, even if his conclusions are impractical.
As far as I can tell, the truth is that conditions in Somalia suck so bad that just having to live there is a human rights abuse. I see where that's a Catch-22 for any authority that takes them into custody.
Personally, my solution to this crisis would be to take the money that would normally be used for ransoms and security, convert it to small bills, and drop them in tiny, buoyant, fish-friendly packages into the waters near, but outside of, the shipping lanes. That, and release thousands of chickens or other hardy, egg-laying birds and drop a lot of seeds near the shore. People who decide on piracy as a career are choosing it as an alternative to starvation.
Of course, I thought the solution to the Afghanistan problem lay in a massive drop of goats with $20 bills around their necks. I still think so.
April 21, 2009 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is more to this pirate stuff than meets the eye for sure. How are they finding the ships?
Its not that easy you know.
The other aspect is the reports of illegal waste dumping off the coast of Somalia. Is this true and what countries are responsible?
April 21, 2009 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Etzioni's whining about "radical" human rights shows not only distance from the reality of the seas, staffing and shipping, as Bruce Webb so clearly points out, but also a kind of affinity for the gung-ho attitude that is commonly expressed by neo-cons (and the previous Bush Administration). Nor has it dawned on him that the state of Somalia and piracy off its shores is largely the U.S.'s doing over the past two to three decades, much like AQ was blowback for Afghanistan and indirectly Israel. It also doesn't seem to have caught Etzioni's attention that arming commercial ships in any serious way is tantamount to creating an independent flotilla of captains and crew that could set off a regional war, if not WWIII.
April 21, 2009 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
"We are told that the reasons we have such a hard time stopping the pirates is that our forces have a very hard time locating them in the vast sea. An odd statement, given that the pirates have no trouble locating our ships in the same sea, and they have no drones, satellites, AWACS, and all the other means of modern technology."
Bad statement written by someone who has never operated in the littorals of a heavily trafficked coastal environment. Determining pirates from legitimate fishing boats and dhows from hundreds of radar blotches is impossible, unless you somehow inspect every sea going vessel in the area, another impossibility. This is the real world, not a make believe fantasy. And the commenter who mentioned somehow making defensive mechanisms to prevent pirates from tossing caving ladders over the rails of low freeboard ships and scampering aboard, you might make plenty of money if you could come up with something like this.
This is just another very complicated situation with no easy answers. Fixing Somalia is the ultimate answer, but no one has had a good solution for achieving this for 20+ years. Maybe, the Islamic Court, as long as they don't transform into some sort of Al Qaeda harboring Taliban. Arming merchant ships has both its pluses and minuses, and the mention of the Mumbai attack shows the unintended consequences.
April 21, 2009 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the United States were at war and we needed to defend against the Wolf packs, would we be helpless?
Maybe more ships should fly the American flag. This being a warning to all pirates, DON’T TREAD ON ME.
Our flagships could have a Pinkerton style protection, just as Wells Fargo Stage lines had.
Our Navy and Coast Guard could collect a premium for the special operations and services they would provide. With high speed Helicopter Gun ships.
Other Businesses wanting to transport goods over the Seas, would find a secure passage paying an upfront fee for this protection as long as they were flying the Recognized safe passage Flag, THE AMERICAN FLAG.
Monies collected from the new customer base, would pay our government for these Special Operations. Maybe even paying enough revenue to enhance our fleet and capabilities.
Any pirate would recognize the American flag, and know, leave this ship alone. No killing, no problems.
The sign on an electrical transformer tells all who approach DANGER. The Flag would symbolize DANGER to any Pirate. All other shipping would take their own risk.
April 21, 2009 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
The reason the Maersk-Alabama flew the American Flag and had an American Crew is due to Public Law 480 that requires US Humanitarian Aid be delivered in American Bottoms with US Crews. Otherwise as many NGO's have been demanding, they would have bid the delivery to the lowest priced shipping available. One or another flag of convenience. In order to get the US Business, Maersk/Moller AS of Denmark is in part a US company, is due to having purchased one US Flag Merchant Marine company.
April 21, 2009 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
More Etzioni nonsense. The reason the pirates can find the vulnerable ships a lot easier than reverse is simple. They don't really care WHICH vulnerable ship they find and there are LOTS of them. Finding the pirates requires a little more selectivity.
April 21, 2009 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmmm . . .
Freighter--six hundred feet long, 50,000 tonnes, clearly marked as a merchant ship
Pirate boat--forty feet, few thousand pounds, unmarked, identical to thousands of other boats pursuing legitimate activities in the same water
April 21, 2009 9:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's good reason that we have a "radical interpretation of human rights" on the high seas -- absent that, navies would be able to do anything they want to anyone without consequence.
Once again Professor "Security First" shows himself to have too much faith in the people with the biggest guns.
April 21, 2009 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course Somali pirates have no human rights . . . they're black and they're MUSLIM!!!
Our ex-IDF commander Etzioni is so predictable, isn't he?
April 21, 2009 9:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't realize he was an IDF commander, that explains a lot.
April 21, 2009 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, Etzioni was actually a commander of a Palmach brigade before Israel's independence and then a commander in the IDF after independence.
April 22, 2009 7:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Any stick to beat a dog.
Etzioni ascribes to the various navies of the world whatever positions he himself dislikes. Then says that's why they haven't dealt with the pirates.
I'm surprised he didn't also cite Gay marriage and the lack of Latin classes in public high schools. And the instant reply rule in the NFL.
Not an outstanding post.
He sometimes writes thoughtfully. Pity to read something like this.
April 21, 2009 11:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, isn't the threat of piracy a bit overblown? It's like the "summer of the shark" redux.
April 21, 2009 11:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm surprised by the vehemence of the reaction against the pirates. Why are so many people so anxious to start pulling triggers? These guys are robbers, not murderers, for the most part. Sure, they deserve to be punished for their crimes, but people seem to be demanding summary execution. It disturbs me most that so few Americans seem to understand or respect due process any more.
April 22, 2009 7:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is there a Pirates Guild?
In the days of Al Capone, crooks knew better than to hit one of Al's places. Places that had paid money for protection.
The Pirates better get educated or buy a pair of binoculars, learning to recognize the American flag.
People have taught their children to recognize dangerous snakes.
The old adage about snakes, Red on yellow can kill a fellow.
A flag of Red, White and Blue
Think before you do.
So easy for the pirates to stay safe, no Rights violated, no killing nor crime. What's the problem?
Except ones ignoring the signs, looking for trouble and finding it.
If it's Red White and Blue
Stay away, fool.
If its White and Blue and Red, mess with it, you’re dead
Come up with your own aid, to remind you of danger. Or suffer for your ignorance.
April 22, 2009 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
This statement is not at all odd because the pirates actually do have intelligence concerning their prospective targets.
Here's one quote on point:
Click this Google search to further explore the topic.
April 23, 2009 1:37 AM | Reply | Permalink