Piracy and Armed Robbery in the Malacca Strait: A Problem Solved

Abstract

The Malacca Strait is a narrow waterway that extends nearly six hundred nautical miles from the Andaman Sea to the South China Sea, between Malaysia and Indonesia. The strait provides a vital shipping lane for vessels sailing from Europe and the Middle East to East Asia, as well as smaller vessels on local voyages. Unfortunately, when we think of the Malacca Strait, images of a waterway infested with pirates often spring to mind. While this image could arguably have been justified in the past, it is now rather outdated. According to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), which produces quarterly and annual reports on piracy and armed robbery against ships, there were only three successful and four attempted attacks by pirates on shipping in the Malacca Strait in 2007. This low level of piracy has continued into 2008, with the Half Yearly Report issued by the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) Information Sharing Center in Singapore listing only one successful attack on a vessel in the Malacca Strait and three attempted ones. Considering that around 90,000 thousand vessels transit the strait on an annual basis, the proportion of ships being attacked in the waterway is extremely small. This article will discuss the reduction in pirate attacks in the Malacca Strait and how the attacks themselves have changed over the last decade. The measures attributed to the reduction will then be discussed, as well as the underlying principles and attitudes that have shaped these initiatives. Particular attention will be given to how the issue of sovereignty, a principle of utmost importance in Southeast Asia, has affected multilateral and bilateral cooperative efforts to address the transnational problem of piracy, including a series of International Maritime Organization (IMO) meetings convened to tackle pressing issues affecting the safety and security of shipping in the Malacca Strait.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2009
Accession Number
ADA519362

Entities

People

  • Catherine Z. Raymond

Organizations

  • King's College London

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Ground and Sea Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Agreements
  • Asia
  • Automatic Identification Systems
  • Environmental Protection
  • Identification Systems
  • Information Exchange
  • Islands
  • Malaysia
  • Maritime Security
  • Navigation
  • Security
  • Shipping
  • Ships
  • Southeast Asia
  • Terrorists
  • United States
  • War Colleges

Readers

  • Asian Economic Studies
  • Maritime Security/Maritime Homeland Security
  • Naval Engineering and Maritime Security