The Gulf of Guinea and Challenges to Enforcement of Maritime Laws for International Security-Implications for Sea Transport
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
www.whiteblacklegal.co.in ISSN: 2581-8503 VOLUME 2 : ISSUE 7 1 www.whiteblacklegal.co.in ISSN: 2581-8503 || March 2021 || Email: [email protected] Website: www.whiteblacklegal.co.in DISCLAIMER No part of this publication may be reproduced or copied in any form by any means without prior written permission of Editor-in-chief of White Black Legal – The Law Journal. The Editorial Team of White Black Legal holds the copyright to all articles contributed to this publication. The views expressed in this publication are purely 2 www.whiteblacklegal.co.in ISSN: 2581-8503 personal opinions of the authors and do not reflect the views of the Editorial Team of White Black Legal. Though all efforts are made to ensure the accuracy and correctness of the information published, White Black Legal shall not be responsible for any errors caused due to oversight or otherwise. EDITORIAL TEAM EDITOR IN CHIEF Name - Mr. Varun Agrawal Consultant || SUMEG FINANCIAL SERVICES PVT.LTD. Phone - +91-9990670288 Email - [email protected] 3 www.whiteblacklegal.co.in ISSN: 2581-8503 EDITOR Name - Mr. Anand Agrawal Consultant|| SUMEG FINANCIAL SERVICES PVT.LTD. EDITOR (HONORARY) Name - Smt Surbhi Mittal Manager || PSU EDITOR(HONORARY) Name - Mr Praveen Mittal Consultant || United Health Group MNC EDITOR Name - Smt Sweety Jain Consultant||SUMEG FINANCIAL SERVICES PVT.LTD. EDITOR Name - Mr. Siddharth Dhawan Core Team Member || Legal Education Awareness Foundation 4 www.whiteblacklegal.co.in ISSN: 2581-8503 ABOUT US WHITE BLACK LEGAL is an open access, peer-reviewed and refereed journal provide dedicated to express views on topical legal issues, thereby generating a cross current of ideas on emerging matters. This platform shall also ignite the initiative and desire of young law students to contribute in the field of law. The erudite response of legal luminaries shall be solicited to enable readers to explore challenges that lie before law makers, lawyers and the society at large, in the event of the ever changing social, economic and technological scenario. With this thought, we hereby present to you WHITE BLACK LEGAL: THE LAW JOURNAL 5 www.whiteblacklegal.co.in ISSN: 2581-8503 The Gulf Of Guinea and challenges to enforcement of maritime laws for international security-implications for sea transport ( By :Promit Acharya,) Abstract Situated in the northernmost part of tropical Atlantic Osean from Cape Lopez in Gabon, north and west to Cape Palmas in Liberia is famous for the intersection of the Equator and Prime Meridian which is in the gulf, Gulf of Guinea is a challenge for enforcement of the maritime laws. The gulf is a sector which is affected by the dominance of piracy. Though sea piracy has a very long history, the phenomenon has developed in past 25 years in the gulf region. The region attracted the U.S. attention after the publication of “More than Humanitarianism: A Strategic U.S. Approach towards Africa” in 2005. This paper shall deal with the problems that are arising in the Gulf of Guinea relating to the enforcement of the Law of the Seas. Following this introduction, the paper also introduces Danish interests in maritime security issues in the Gulf of Guinea. It introduces a very broad understanding of the problem by accounting for how a number of onshore challenges are of direct relevance to the problem of maritime insecurity in the GoG. Some of these challenges have also been referred to as root causes. It shall also argue that these types of piracy need to be understood in relation to a range of other maritime security challenges including illegal fishery and smuggling. It also provides an overview of some of the most important regional initiatives as well as a brief description of some of the extra-regional actors who are already engaged in the region with a view to strengthening maritime security. This section provides the backdrop for a discussion of some of the risks that external actors should pay attention to 6 www.whiteblacklegal.co.in ISSN: 2581-8503 when contemplating how to contribute to the development of a safer maritime environment in the Gulf of Guinea. Key Words:- Gulf of Guinea, Piracy, Challenges, Regional initiatives, Extra- regional actors Introduction:- Geographical Location:- Gulf of Guinea, is a part of the eastern tropical Atlantic Ocean of the western African coast. It extends westward from Cap López, near the Equator, to Cape Palmas. Its major tributaries include the Volta and Niger rivers. The coastline of the Gulf of Guinea forms part of the western edge of the African tectonic plate and corresponds remarkably to the continental margin of South America running from Brazil to the Guianas. The coincidence between the geology and the geomorphology of these two coastlines constitutes one of the clearest confirmations of the theory of continental drift. The continental shelf of the Gulf of Guinea is almost uniformly narrow and widens to as much as 100 miles (160 km) only from Sierra Leone to the Bijagós Archipelago, Guinea-Bissau, and in the Bight of Biafra. The Niger River has built a great delta of Holocene muds (i.e., those less than 11,700 years old)— 7 www.whiteblacklegal.co.in ISSN: 2581-8503 and it is only here that the fit between the African and South American tectonic plates is seriously disturbed.1 Piracy:- Pirates are developed because of the state’s incapacity to meet certain need of such people. This need are either unequal distribution of wealth of the state, corruption in the concerned state, weak institutions and inefficiency of the state to deal with these problems, political instability in the concerned state and also any types of armed conflict with this people2. Piracy, as defined under UNCLOS, is an act of inciting and facilitation of illegal acts including violence, detention or depredation, committed against the ships or aircrafts on the high seas primarily to meet private ends. The United Nations Convention on Laws of the Seas (UNCLOS) has made it a punishable offence.3 The convention falls short to define the act of piracy inside the territorial sea. Resolution A.1025(26) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) defines it as an armed robbery against a ship or any vessel inside a state’s internal, archipelagic and territorial waters. Lord Murphy categorically establishes a nexus between the existence of piracy and sanctuary, i.e. an ungoverned territory with insufficient state interference, because such a territory has a favorable geography, unacceptability of certain culture, continuous conflicts and disorders, insufficient mechanism for enforcement of laws which leads to judicial and legal inefficiency.4 1 Encyclopedia Britannica, Gulf of Guinea Gulf Atlantic Ocean, (April 1 2020, 9:54 A.M.) https://www.britannica.com/place/Gulf-of-Guinea 2 Oyewole, ‘Pirate sanctuary.' 3 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOSE), 1982. 4 Murphy, ‘Piracy and the Exploitation of Sanctuary.' 8 www.whiteblacklegal.co.in ISSN: 2581-8503 The suppression of such a criminal activity needs the utmost cooperation of the member nations by the committed campaign of sea powers and naval presence of the concerned stated in such region. It is also mandated under Article 100 of the UNCLOS. Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea:- The incidents of piracy were existing between the 16th and 19th century in this Gulf region due to incapacity of the pre-colonial African states to take actions against this. This thing continued till the end of 19th century with the intervention of the British Empire. The Royal Navy of the British Empire and several European powers were successful in destroying several pirate groups.5 The pirates re-emerged soon after the British Empire left their colonies in Africa. During the time span of 1970s and 1980s, they were specifically seen in the coastal areas of Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote-de-Ivorie, Senegal, and Sierra Leone.6 The main reasons behind this re-emergence were the combination of weak naval capacity, economical issues and corruption in the political space of the post-colonial African states. These reasons were also added up with poverty, inequality, corruption etc.7 The coasts of the East Africa and South and East Asia had experienced this criminal activity in the late 20th century. 5 Boot, ‘Pirates, Then and Now.' 6 IMO, “Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ship,” MSC 15/19, 15 October 1984. 7 Charles Ukeje and Wullson Ela, African Approaches to Maritime Security: The Gulf of Guinea, (Abuja: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2013); Ukoha Ukiwo, “From ‘Pirates' to ‘Militants': A Historical Perspective on Anti-State and Anti-Oil Company Mobilization among the Ijaw of Warri, Western Niger Delta,” African Affairs, 106(425) (2007): 587–610. 9 www.whiteblacklegal.co.in ISSN: 2581-8503 As of now, the main problems that lie in this area are Increased incidents of piracy, which counted 25 in 2005 and reached up to 59 in 2008.8 The pirates attacks have become sophisticated with the use of sophisticated weapons such as Ak-47, varieties of machine and sub- machine guns, pump action guns etc. The violations against the seafarers have categorically increased. There were 140 reported cases of kidnapping in the time span of 2000 to 2014.9 There are around 62 incidents of tankers being hijacked and its products being shipped between 2009 and 2014. These reasons along with the fact that the main source of revenue in this region is the oil, gas, gold, iron ore and bauxite, on which the potential economy is largely dependent, have not only increased the piracy threat in the Gulf region but also have attracted the attention of the International community in recent times.10 Reasons behind this growth:- There were various reasons thet accelerated the growth of this piracy in the Gulf region.