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ABSTRACT
Τhe global economic downturn during the pandemic and the current geopolitical tensions may be marking a resurgence in maritime piracy, rendering close examination of its determinants useful for the international shipping industry and for policymakers. We contribute to pertinent literature by focusing on legal factors that affect sea piracy in Nigeria and Somalia, two countries that feature prominently among the traditional piracy hotspots of West and East Africa respectively. Using data for the period 2002–2020 and panel estimation, we assert prior research by finding institutional factors, mainly corruption, and socioeconomic factors, notably youth unemployment, being conducive to maritime piracy. Specifically, we find institutional factors to be more important for Nigeria, while socioeconomic factors to stand out in the case of Somalia. The results obtained confirm our key hypothesis that in both cases examined pirates have a preference to attack ships with Western European countries’ flags, where legislation tends to be less severe in terms of punishment for the crime of maritime piracy. Our findings support the argument that to discourage pirates from exploiting differences in national legal frameworks worldwide, deterrence of maritime piracy needs to be coordinated at the international level.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Data availability statement
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Notes
2 Hallwood and Miceli, ‘Enforcing the Law’.
3 Martinez-Zarzoso and Bensassi, ‘The Price of Modern Maritime Piracy’, 397–418.
4 Jones, ‘Maritime Piracy and the Cost of World Trade’, 158–170.
5 UNODC, 2017 Annual Report.
6 Bueger, ‘What Future for the Contact Group on Somali Piracy?’.
7 Jesperson et al., ‘Understanding the Socio-Economic and Structural Factors Influencing Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea’.
8 Ibid.
9 International Maritime Organization, Piracy Monthly Reports, Piracy Monthly Briefs.
10 Winn and Lewis, ‘European Union Anti-piracy Initiatives in the Horn of Africa’, 2113–2128.
12 Mason, ‘Piracy: A Legal Definition’.
13 Karim, ‘Prosecution of Maritime Pirates’, 37–94.
14 Satkauskas, ‘Piracy at Sea and the Limits of International Law’, 217–235.
15 Kontorovich, ‘The Penalties for Piracy’.
16 Ibid.
17 Karim, ‘Prosecution of Maritime Pirates’.
18 Kontorovich, ‘The Penalties for Piracy’.
19 Treves, ‘Piracy, Law of the Sea, and Use of Force’, 399–414.
20 Nincic, ‘Maritime Piracy in Africa’, 1–16.
21 Neethling, ‘Piracy around Africa’s West and East Coasts,’ 89–108.
22 Biziouras, ‘Piracy, State Capacity and Root Causes’, 111–122.
23 Roelofse, ‘Comparative Issues of Piracy and Terrorism on the West and East Coasts of Africa with a Focus on Nigeria and Somalia’.
24 Shortland, ‘Can We Stop Talking about Somali Piracy Now?’ 419–431.
25 Nwalozie, ‘Exploring Contemporary Sea Piracy in Nigeria, the Niger Delta and the Gulf of Guinea’, 159–178.
26 S. Jesperson et al., ‘Understanding the Socio-Economic and Structural Factors Influencing Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea’.
27 Akar, ‘The Development of Piracy in the Horn of Africa’, 31–39.
28 Dutton, ‘Bringing Pirates to Justice’, 201–245.
29 Satkauskas, ‘Piracy at Sea and the Limits of International Law’.
30 Randrianantenaina, ‘Maritime Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships’.
31 Hallwood and Miceli, ‘Enforcing the Law’.
32 Akar, ‘The Development of Piracy in the Horn of Africa’.
33 Kontorovich, ‘The Penalties for Piracy’.
34 Kontorovich, ‘The Penalties for Piracy: An Empirical Study of National Prosecution for International Crime’.
35 Karim, ‘Prosecution of Maritime Pirates’.
36 Mazyar, ‘Maritime Piracy Operations’, 62–69.
37 Kontorovich, ‘The Penalties for Piracy’.
38 Kontorovich, ‘The Penalties for Piracy: An Empirical Study of National Prosecution for International Crime’.
39 Freeman, ‘Somali Pirates on Trial in Holland’.
40 Kenya has signed agreements with the U.S., the U.K., and Europe to accept and prosecute suspected pirates. Although the focus of in this paper is on Europe, which generally has lenient penalties for piracy, we note that the U.S. also sends pirates to Kenya for trial; see, for example, Taussig-Rubbo, ‘Pirate Trials, the International Criminal Court and Mob Justice’, 51–74.
41 Kraska, Contemporary Maritime Piracy.
42 Ramdhass, Universal Jurisdiction under International Criminal Law, A Critical Analysis.
43 Mujuzi, ‘The Prosecution in Seychelles of Piracy Committed on the High Seas and the Right to a Fair Trial’, 1–48.
44 Kontorovich, ‘The Penalties for Piracy: An Empirical Study of National Prosecution for International Crime’.
45 Dutton, ‘Bringing Pirates to Justice’.
46 Hallwood and Miceli, ‘Enforcing the Law’.
47 Lansing and Petersen, ‘Ship-Owners and the Twenty-First Century Somali Pirate’, 507–516.
48 Brancaccio, Kalouptsidi and Papageorgiou, ‘Geography, Transportation, and Endogenous Trade Costs’, 657–691.
49 Hsu and Hsieh, ‘Routing, Ship Size, and Sailing Frequency Decision-Making for a Maritime Hub-and-Spoke Container Network’, 899–916.
50 For example, the cost of the journey for a tanker chartered to travel from Rotterdam to Singapore is significantly higher if the vessel takes the long route through Port Elizabeth in order to avoid Somali piracy than the cost associated with the route via Suez including the cost of hiring private security against piracy on board.
51 Shortland, ‘Can We Stop Talking about Somali Piracy Now?’.
52 Jesperson et al., ‘Understanding the Socio-Economic and Structural Factors Influencing Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea’.
53 UNCTAD, UNCTADStat (2021).
55 Zwinge, ‘Duties of Flag States to Implement and Enforce International Standards and Regulations and Measures to Counter Their Failure to Do So’, 297–323, p.298.
56 Shortland, ‘Can We Stop Talking about Somali Piracy Now?’.
57 Jesperson et al., ‘Understanding the Socio-Economic and Structural Factors Influencing Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea’.
58 Kiourktsoglou and Coutroubis, ‘Is Somali Piracy a Random Phenomenon?’ 51–70.
59 Jin et al., ‘Marine Piracy Prediction and Prevention’.
60 Xiao, Fan and Xu, ‘A Study on Global Piracy Attacks' Trends and Characteristics Based on Data Analysis’, 233–244.
61 See, for example, Shortland, ‘Can We Stop Talking about Somali Piracy Now?’.
62 Hartley, The Economics of Defence Policy.
63 Nwalozie, ‘Exploring Contemporary Sea Piracy in Nigeria, the Niger Delta and the Gulf of Guinea’.
64 Kontorovich, ‘The Penalties for Piracy: An Empirical Study of National Prosecution for International Crime’.
65 Karim, ‘Prosecution of Maritime Pirates’.
66 Gries and Redlin, ‘Pirates – The Young and the Jobless’, 309–323.
67 Martinez-Zarzoso and Bensassi, ‘The Price of Modern Maritime Piracy’.
68 Data for Nigeria refer to all 36 states of the Nigerian Federation.
69 See, for example, Daxecker and Prins, ‘Insurgents of the Sea’, 940–965.
70 Scott, ‘Prosecuting Pirates’.
71 Nwalozie, ‘Exploring Contemporary Sea Piracy in Nigeria, the Niger Delta and the Gulf of Guinea’.
72 Jesperson et al., ‘Understanding the Socio-Economic and Structural Factors Influencing Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea’.
73 Mazyar, ‘Maritime Piracy Operations’.
74 Chatterjee and Ray, ‘Crime, Corruption and Institutions’.
75 International Maritime Organization, Reports on Acts of Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships.
76 Daxecker and Prins, ‘Insurgents of the Sea’.
77 Jablonski and Oliver, ‘The Political Economic of Plunder’, 682–708.
78 According to Partnership for Transparency, corruption in failed states further drives the perception of government illegitimacy, forcing the state into a vicious cycle of instability. Thus, there is a strong correlation between Transparency International’s perception of corruption scores and a state’s instability. Indeed, in the 2013 Failed States Index, eight of the ten weakest countries appear among the recent Corruption Perceptions Index’s bottom ten ranking of countries perceived as most corrupt (https://www.ptfund.org/corruption-as-an-indicator-of-a-failed-state/). We, therefore, take it that the higher the value of the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), the weaker the state and that very high values of the CPI constitute indication of a failed state.
79 Hastings, ‘Geographies of State Failure and Sophistication in Maritime Piracy Hijackings’, 213–223.
80 The fixed effect of each region is multiplied by the corruption perception index or by youth unemployment.
81 For a thorough analysis and comparison between Nigeria and Somalia, see Neethling, ‘Piracy around Africa’s West and East Coasts’ and Roelofse, ‘Comparative Issues of Piracy and Terrorism on the West and East Coasts of Africa with a Focus on Nigeria and Somalia’.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Anna Triantafillou
Anna Triantafillou holds a Ph.D. (University of Manchester) in Economics. She is a Professor of Economics and Dean of the School of Business and Economics at Deree – The American College of Greece. Her research interests lie in applied economics and finance.
Ioanna Bardaka
Ioanna Bardaka holds a Ph.D. in Econometrics (University of Connecticut). She is currently an economist with the Research Department of the Bank of Greece. Her research interests include applied econometrics and international trade issues.
Ioannis Vrettakos
Ioannis Vrettakos holds a B.A. (Hons) in Economics (Deree – The American College of Greece). He is currently engaged in research on applied economics.
George Zombanakis
George A. Zombanakis holds a D. Phil. in International Economics (University of York). He is currently teaching at the American College of Greece, Department of Accounting, Economics and Finance. His research interests include conflict and security economics, the defence industry and defence policy.