Surveillance, Enforcement and the Status quo.

Today this special international space is regulated by 589 bilateral and multilateral agreements[1], a fact that is in itself an indictment, reflecting the low priority that the calls for improving environmental, or ocean governance has among world political leaders. It also reflects the general complacency of users of this special international space with the “status quo”, regardless of its effectiveness as a regulatory framework. Furthermore, as the current piracy crisis has revealed, many dangerous gaps exists in the governance in this unique international space. Enforcement of international agreements is usually the responsibility of each state party. In UNCLOS this responsibility is exerted by coastal states, flag-states and port-states. There is a wide range of good and bad practices that could be catalogued for each of the major conventions and agreements. For example, the practice of using a flag of convenience in shipping is widely accepted as a lesser evil and forms part of the status quo.

On the other hand, finding solutions it is not easy, as the Somali piracy crisis has shockingly showed the world. Even at the coast, expanding the role of the defense community for “constabulary” and “benign” roles always faces cultural and practical obstacles. Even in the case of prosecuting criminal acts, restrictions exist on most navy organizations to undertake “police functions” in terms of law enforcement outside national territorial waters. When such actions are possible, the tangle of legal arrangements necessary to render it effective soon becomes overwhelming. In the Caribbean Region, for example, with an intensive illegal traffic of drugs and people, the US Coast Guard works under more than 22 bilateral agreements, allowing for law enforcement within the territorial waters of other countries[2]

But there are positive signs. The Malacca Strait is a critical and strategic waterway in the global trading system. It carries more than one fourth of the world’s commerce and half the world’s oil. In 2006, having rejected a previous offer of the USA to patrol the strait, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia signed the straits of Malacca Patrol Joint Coordination Committee Terms of Reference (TOR) and the Standard Operation Procedures (SOP) to jointly act in order to tighten security in the Strait. In 2008 Thailand too became part of the joint committee for joint air and surface patrols. This combined effort had a decisive effect in limiting the piracy activity in the strait. In 2004 there were 38 cases of piracy, 2 in 2008 and in 2009, to date only one.

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[1]  The University of Oregon maintains a project that catalogues and updates a data-base with all the existing bilateral and multilateral International Environmental Agreements (IEA). Http://iea.uoregon.edu

[2]  Ocean Security Initiative (OSI) 2007.  International Conference on Ocean Security in the Wider Caribbean: Congressman Solomon P. Ortiz, Findings and Recommendations; International Center, Corpus Christi, Texas –USA