Somali piracy and international law Research Paper

Somali piracy and international law - Research Paper Example Background of the study In 1991, Somali went down into war after the fall of Dictator Mohamed Siad Barrre (Little 79). Shortly after his fall, some foreign countries took advantage of the anarchy and sent their navy to fish in the Somali waters. Other countries took advantage of the situation to dump their toxic waste and nuclear waste at the sea. Due to lack of government in place to control such illegal activities in the Somali waters, the Somali fishermen began to organize themselves to confront waste dumpers and to collect some revenues from foreign fishers. It is this legitimate fight against foreign exploitation that turned to be a criminal venture after the Somalis discovered its profitable potentials (Little 99). Most of the people who are pirates along the Somali coast are actually not from the coast but are former militiamen whose biggest motivation is money (Kraska 155, Natalie, Joanna, and Donald 241). However, they justify their activities by claiming that they are always on a mission to defend their waters from illegal fishing and dumping of waste products. This has led to increased piracy along the Somali coast and has attracted the international response on the same. In this regard, the United Nations Security Council has passed a series of resolutions to give its forces legal authority to apprehend pirates. The Somali pirates were much angered by the council resolution and especially because it was initiated and promoted by the United States. In fact, this marked a clear start of Somali pirates’ connection with the Al-queda terror group (Little 49). Since the main aim of the Somali pirates is to scoop money from their victims, the Al-queda group targeted Somalia in order to us e Somalis along the coast to terrorize targeted citizens of certain states in the exchange of money. However, this did not seem to work for the Al-queda group as the Somali pirates considered this as a different mission altogether. After lacking concrete contact with the Somali pirates, the Al-queda group turned to Somali militia men who with the help of Al-queda consolidated their forces and named it ‘Al-shabab’ (Alina 481). Al-shabab conflicted the role played by the Somali pirates and started kidnapping citizens of western states. Their main target people were the tourists from the United States especially those that visit the border, Kenyan coast. In the recent developments, a German tourist was killed and his wife kidnapped by men believed to be members of Al-shabab terror group. However, the Kenyan government was quick to launch a manhunt for the Al-shabab in the effort to rescue the kidnapped lady. The Kenyan government declared war against both the Somali pirate s and the Al-shabab and launched a military land operation in Somalia. Kenya called for the intervention of the international community with the United States, Britain and Israel backing it up for the operation. Statement of the problem Since Somali attracted the international attention due to piracy activities, very little has been done by the international community to curb the menace. This is what has led to increased piracy activities along the Somali coast. In fact, the international