Maritime security
Maritime security is an umbrella term informed to classify issues in the maritime domain that are often related to national security, marine environment, economic development, and human security. This includes the world's oceans but also regional seas, territorial waters, rivers and ports, where seas act as a “stage for geopolitical power projection, interstate warfare or militarized disputes, as a source of specific threats such as piracy, or as a connector between states that enables various phenomena from colonialism to globalization”. The theoretical concept of maritime security has evolved from a narrow perspective of national naval power projection towards a buzzword that incorporates many interconnected sub-fields. The definition of the term maritime security varies and while no internationally agreed definition exists, the term has often been used to describe both existing, and new regional and international challenges to the maritime domain. The buzzword character enables international actors to discuss these new challenges without the need to define every potentially contested aspect of it. Maritime security is of increasing concern to the global shipping industry, where there are a wide range of security threats and challenges. Some of the practical issues clustered under the term of maritime security include crimes such as piracy, armed robbery at sea, trafficking of people and illicit goods, illegal fishing or marine pollution. War, warlike activity, maritime terrorism and interstate rivalry are also maritime security concerns.
While a concern throughout history for nation states, maritime security has evolved significantly since the early 2000s, when in particular concerns over terrorist attacks on port facilities sparked interest in security in the maritime domain and led to the creation of the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code. The ISPS Code is enforced through Chapter XI-2 of the SOLAS Convention. Most littoral states and international organisations have also outlined maritime security strategies. It is in particular piracy in Southeast Asia, off the coast of Somalia and in West Africa which has triggered recognition for the detrimental effects of maritime insecurities for economic development, human security as well as the environment. Maritime security is often transnational and goes beyond the maritime domain itself. It is characterized as being cross-jurisdictional and/or highly jurisdictional complex.
History of maritime security
Historically, the sea has been subject to different concepts of law and power. The term mare nostrum was coined by the Romans in 30 BC to 117 AD as a term to describe its control of the Mediterranean Sea. From this concept of the sealing of a sea, the legal concept of mare clausum was developed during the age of discovery between the 15th and 17th century. The sea became a restricted space, organised between Portugal and Spain. Maritime activity was exclusively reserved for the enhancement of national security through naval military. In 1609, Hugo Grotius, a Dutch philosopher and jurist, published the book mare liberum where he introduced the concept of the free sea. In his book, Grotius laid out the foundation of the freedom of navigation at sea. The sea was seen as international territory, where every nation was free to conduct trade.Grotius’ concept of the free sea was superseded by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. This international agreement first came into effect in 1958 as the Convention on the High Seas. The most recent agreement is UNCLOS III, which is active since 1994. It now includes various zones and jurisdictions, including internal, territorial, and archipelagic waters. It further defines the exclusive sovereign waters of a state called contiguous zone, and the exclusive economic zones in which a state has the sole exploitation rights of resources like oil and fish. The latter can be extended by the continental shelf, a natural prolongation of the territory of the respective state. Maritime security has until then been mostly concerned with interstate naval conflicts and piracy at sea.
File:Defense.gov News Photo 001012-N-0000N-001.jpg|thumb|right|The warship USS Cole after an attack in October 2000 while she was being refueled in Aden harbour, Yemen
As a concept and agenda maritime security has evolved since the late 1990s and early 2000s. In particular concerns over terrorist attacks on port facilities sparked new security interests in the maritime domain. Notable events influencing the maritime security paradigm are the USS Cole bombing in 2000 and the September 11 attacks in 2001. Several states and international organisations have since outlined maritime security strategies. Many best practices and standards regarding physical maritime security like the ISPS Code from 2002 as a consequence of the attacks have been published by regulating authorities or the maritime industry. In the light of the perceived terrorist threat, the scope of the maritime security concept began to broaden from the narrow focus on interstate military confrontation to include other issues.
It is in particular the surge of piracy during the early 2000s in Southeast Asia, off the coast of Somalia and in West Africa which has triggered recognition for the detrimental effects of maritime insecurities. As a result of the economic costs for world trade and the physical threats to seafarers, maritime security gained a significant increase of attention by the shipping industry, insurers and policy makers around the world. Piracy was also the starting point of many international relations scholars for approaching maritime security as a concept. In the wake of the Mumbai Terrorist attack in November 2008, an Indian scholar even lamented the serious lack of maritime vision in his government's policies to preserve India's expanding interests, thereby coining the catch-phrase "sea-blindness".
One effect of piracy has been the development of regional cooperation initiatives. In Southeast Asia for example, the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia has been initiated in 2004 and includes now an Information Sharing Centre. Besides maritime domain awareness more topics began to become subject of these cooperation initiatives. The International Maritime Organization Djibouti Code of Conduct, adopted in 2009, was originally an agreement on cooperation between East African and Southwest Asian states to counter piracy. Since its revision and the complementary Jeddah Amendment to the DCoC of 2017, it now also includes other illicit maritime activities than piracy like human trafficking or illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.
Regulatory environment
Maritime security is facilitated at sea and in ports by several international regulations and codes from the International Maritime Organization. The primary Code is the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code which entered into force in 2004. The United Nations Convention on the Laws of the Sea which took place in 1984 gives a framework to piracy prohibition. Since 2008, the United Nations Security Council edited some Resolutions concerning the specific Somali case like for example the 1846th in 2008 and the 1918th in 2010, in order to make member countries put piracy as a penal crime in their domestic legislation. Those resolutions were ratified, but despite ratification, few countries have applied that resolution in their domestic law. In 2011, NATO put the maritime security issue in its Alliance Maritime Strategy objectives.Despite the few countries who applied UN resolutions focused on Somalia piracy in their national legislation, many have created national agencies or bureaus specialized in maritime Security, like the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency in Pakistan. The first country to put the problem on their agenda were the United States in 2004 with the Maritime Security Policy. It marked the beginning of United States' Maritime Security Operations, some maritime military actions other than wars, charged to detect and prevent illicit operations.
Practical issues of maritime security
Piracy and armed robbery
and armed robbery remains an ongoing issue in maritime security. The ICC International Maritime Bureau Piracy and Armed Robbery report states that attacks against ships and their crews have risen in 2019/2020. They identify that the Gulf of Guinea off West Africa is increasingly dangerous for commercial shipping, accounting for just over 90% of maritime kidnappings worldwide. However, the report noted that the number of ship hijackings in the first half of 2020 was at their lowest level since 1993. In total, IMB's Piracy Reporting Centre recorded 98 incidents of piracy and armed robbery in the first half of 2020, up from 78 in Q2 2019. Some areas of Southeast Asia, including the Straits of Malacca and the Celebes Sea are also areas where piracy and armed robbery take place at sea, although in most cases, armed robbery is the most prevalent.The West Indian Ocean is an area with maritime security concerns for shipping and governments. Somali piracy started to increase in the early 2000s, after a civil war affected the area. Between 2008 and 2013, large numbers of attacks against merchant ships in the Indian Ocean occurred, gaining international attention. This eventually led to the privatisation of maritime security as an increasing number of shipping companies hired private maritime security companies to protect their crews, ships and cargoes '. This development affects governments, navies and other security agencies because it is a form of privatised security, one of the core functions of modern states. The maritime industry has developed an ISO certification for the provision of privately contracted armed security personnel on board ships. The presence of PCASPs on ships creates complex legal issues and in most cases, permission must be given from the ship's flag State before armed personnel can attend the vessel and this usually involves confirming Rules for the Use of Force.