The twenty-first century has seen a sharp rise in privatization of the military, especially of logistics and security functions during the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The outbreak of Somali piracy that started in 2008 has prompted a similar revolution in maritime security. Private security companies began operating armed escort vessels to protect merchant shipping against pirates off the Horn of Africa. Private Anti-Piracy Navies is intended to provide a contextualized understanding of the historical origins, current state, and future prospects of this fast-changing sector. Centuries ago, the British East India Company used a private navy against piracy in the same waters with much success. Yet since then, international law has evolved to more tightly regulate the use of force by civilians, and to afford greater protections to suspected pirates. Thus, the development of what are in effect private warships has presented numerous legal and regulatory problems. How can the companies that operate these vessels be effectively licensed? Under what circumstances should they be allowed to use lethal force? This book explains how regulators in industry and government have attempted to answer such questions, and highlights the remaining areas of uncertainty. It also addresses the economic factors that drive the struggle between pirates and anti-piracy forces. Of equal concern are operational considerations such as defensive tactics, logistics, and rules of engagement. Security companies must carefully balance rights concerns against the need to defend ships effectively. Partly due to the contribution of private security, piracy in the Indian Ocean has dropped significantly over the past two years, leading to widespread overconfidence. Governments under severe budget pressure may withdraw their naval task forces from the region prematurely, leading to a resurgence of Somali piracy. At the same time, pirates are wreaking havoc in the Gulf of Guinea off West Africa. The book concludes with an assessment of private naval forces’ prospects in these conflicts over the short term, as well as the implications for wider naval privatization in the long run.

Private Anti-Piracy Navies assesses the historical context, current state, and future prospects of privatizing maritime security vessels. It places particular emphasis on the economic, legal, and operational dimensions of this growing sector, and addresses issues of key interest to industry, government, and academia.

In Private Military and Security Contractors (PMSCs) a multinational team of scholars and experts address a developing phenomenon: controlling the use of privatized force by states in international politics. Robust analyses of the evolving, multi-layered tapestry of formal and informal mechanisms of control address the microfoundations of the market, such as the social and role identities of contract employees, their acceptance by military personnel, and potential tensions between them. The extent and willingness of key states—South Africa, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Israel—to monitor and enforce discipline to structure their contractual relations with PMSCs on land and at sea is examined, as is the ability of the industry to regulate itself. Also discussed is the nascent international legal regime to reinforce state and industry efforts to encourage effective practices, punish inappropriate behavior, and shape the market to minimize the hazards of loosening states’ oligopolistic control over the means of legitimate organized violence. The volume presents a theoretically-informed synthesis of micro- and macro-levels of analysis, offering new insights into the challenges of controlling the agents of organized violence used by states for scholars and practitioners alike.

Freedom of Navigation and Globalization offers a timely analysis of current issues in the Law of the Sea in six Parts. Part I examines co-operative measures taken within the Southeast Asia region to combat piracy and armed robbery against ships, and the historical activities of the Republic of Korea navy in countering piracy. Part II focuses on transnational threats including counter proliferation activities, freedom of navigation, Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, and the regulation of private maritime security companies. Part III consists of two essays on development in the Arctic Ocean. The first updates the activities of the Arctic Council, the second looks at cooperative measures taken by China, Japan, and Korea with respect to science in the Arctic. In Part IV the topic of energy security and sealanes is taken up. Institutional building within ASEAN is examined for maritime security in Southeast Asia. Freedom of navigation is compared with the straight baselines of China in the South China Sea. In the next essay, cooperative efforts to enhance navigational safety and environmental protection in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore are explored. Part V considers balancing marine environmental protection and freedom of navigation. The European Union’s Marine Strategy Framework Directive is reviewed. The dispute settlement regime in UNCLOS and the 2001 International Law Commission Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts are analyzed for flag State responsibility for pollution violations. The current mechanisms in the South China Sea marine environment are also evaluated. Part VI discusses marine data collection in the context of its applicability to Part XIII of UNCLOS. Attention is given to the various categories and their legal consequences. The last paper in the volume outlines global challenges such as global warming, rising sea level and changes in the ice over in the Polar Regions.

This book offers a unique and scholarly perspective on a little-studied subject: maritime crime and policing. The seas and oceans cover 70 percent of the earth’s surface and 90 percent of world trade by volume travels by sea. Furthermore, the refugee crisis has produced an inflow of people attempting to find a better life, particularly in Northwest Europe and the UK, which has had an impact on the maritime domains of European ports. While there has been attention paid to the role of maritime policing by scholars in maritime security studies, little attention has been paid by criminologists and policing studies scholars. This book aims to fill this gap. Bringing together a range of international scholars, this book covers a variety of topics pertinent to maritime crime and its policing, such as fraud, piracy and armed robbery at sea, illegal and unregulated fishing, smuggling, people trafficking, illegal immigration, illegal dumping and pollution, arms trafficking, terrorism, and cargo theft. It brings together new perspectives on several key criminological themes such as transnational organised crime, criminalisation, and securitisation and provides a bold new direction for the landlocked discipline of criminology and policing studies. An accessible and compelling read, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of criminology, policing, sociology, politics, migration studies, and all those interested in the policing of the sea.

From pirates to smugglers, migrants to hackers, from stolen fish to smuggled drugs, the sea is becoming a place of increasing importance on the global agenda as criminals use it as a theatre to conduct their crimes unfettered. This volume sets out to provide an introduction to the key issues of pertinence in Maritime Security today. It demonstrates why the sea is a space of great strategic importance, and how threats to security at sea have a real impact for people around the world. It examines an array of challenges and threats to security playing out at sea, including illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, irregular migration, piracy, smuggling of illicit goods, and cyber security, while also looking at some of the mechanism and role-players involved in addressing these perils. Each chapter provides an overview of the issue it discusses and provides a brief case study to illustrate how this issue is playing out in real-life. This book thus allows readers an insight into this evolving multidisciplinary field of study. As such, it makes for an informative read for academics and practitioners alike, as well as policymakers and students, offering a well-rounded introduction of the main issues in current Maritime Security.

This book identifies and explains the functional and ideational boundaries regarding what states and Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) both do and possess regarding land power, sea power, and air power. Whereas the mercenaries, privateers, and chartered companies of years past held similar characteristics to state military forces, the PMSCs of today are dissimilar for two reasons: a conventional forces norm amongst states and a state proclivity towards the offensive. These factors reveal both the limitations of and the possibilities for contemporary security privatization. This volume is ideal for civilian and military practitioners and students wishing to develop a detailed understanding of what the private military and security industry has to offer and why it is structured the way it is.

Maritime piracy off the coast of Somalia was first recognised as a global concern in 2008 after the hijackings of World Food Programme vessels. It remains a serious impediment to international maritime trade and a significant risk to seafarers. Bringing a criminological perspective to the subject, this book presents an analysis of Somali piracy by means of Routine Activity Theory and regulatory pluralism. Based on data from a range of sources, including published documents and in-depth interviews with representatives of industry, government, and international organisations, the study concludes that no one institution or policy will suffice to control Somali piracy. Accordingly, a number of different actors and institutions have a role to play in reducing the supply of motivated offenders, the vulnerability of prospective victims, and in enhancing guardianship. The book envisages a holistic counter-piracy program based on a pluralistic regulatory model that is sustainable within the region, and managed by the region, providing the best opportunity for both the immediate future, and for long-term success. This study will be essential reading for criminologists, public policy and legal scholars, as well as policy makers and regulators in countries affected by and dealing with piracy, and international professional advocacy groups operating in the maritime space.

This book widens the current debate on security privatization by examining how and why an increasing number of private actors beyond private military and security companies (PMSCs) have come to perform various security related functions. While PMSCs provide security for profit, most other private sector stakeholders make a profit by selling goods and services that were not originally connected with security in the traditional sense. However, due to the continuous introduction of new legal and technical regulations by public authorities, many non-security-related private businesses now have to perform at least some security functions. This volume offers new insights into security practices of non-security-related private businesses and their impact on security governance. The contributions extend beyond the conceptual and theoretical arguments in the existing body of literature to offer a range of original case studies on the specific roles of non-security-related private companies of all sizes, from all areas of business and from different geographic regions.

Countering mainstream theories, this book focuses on the expanding institutionalisation of international law.