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I know I mention this in another thread, but this would be great as a sticky, we need every person we can to sign this;
WORLD WIDE ? No one in the shipping industry can be unaware of the growth area over the past few years. Piracy, particularly in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia, has risen to hitherto unseen levels. Periods of austerity have always led to piratical acts going back as far as history itself and this recent trend is not a phenomenon, other than the scale of the modern targets. No vessel, container ship, bulk carrier, tanker or private yacht is safe when travelling some of the worlds shipping lanes.
Now, after determined efforts by individual interests, and less than effective measures by many others, we are seeing a greater effort to cooperate and coordinate the battle against the buccaneers. On the 14th May there was an informal meeting at the United Nations hosted by Ban ki-Moon Secretary General of the United Nations together with Abdurahman A. Ibrahim, Somali Deputy Prime Minister. Also present was International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Secretary-General Efthimios E. Mitropoulos and the meeting was organized as three panels focussing on piracy from a wide variety of perspectives, including political, legal, social and economic aspects of combating it, in general, and in the particular case of Somalia.
Mr. Mitropoulos took the opportunity to highlight the successful collaboration that Asian nations, with IMO support, had already established to combat piracy and armed robbery in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore. He expressed the expectation that a similar approach in the current trouble-spots - off the coast of Somalia, the Gulf of Aden and the wider Indian Ocean - would also pay dividends, and pointed to IMO's success in drawing up the Djibouti Code of Conduct under which regional systems and infrastructure for information sharing, training, maritime situational awareness and legislative improvements are being established.
Formally adopted in January 2009, the Djibouti Code now has 14 signatory States, all united in the effort to implement the rule of law at sea. The code was itself inspired by the Regional Co-Operation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia; which was signed in 2004 by 16 countries.
Today a truly eclectic band of shipping interests are to put pressure on the relevant authorities by way of an international petition http://www.endpiracypetition.org/ intended to persuade governments.
Now, after determined efforts by individual interests, and less than effective measures by many others, we are seeing a greater effort to cooperate and coordinate the battle against the buccaneers. On the 14th May there was an informal meeting at the United Nations hosted by Ban ki-Moon Secretary General of the United Nations together with Abdurahman A. Ibrahim, Somali Deputy Prime Minister. Also present was International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Secretary-General Efthimios E. Mitropoulos and the meeting was organized as three panels focussing on piracy from a wide variety of perspectives, including political, legal, social and economic aspects of combating it, in general, and in the particular case of Somalia.
Mr. Mitropoulos took the opportunity to highlight the successful collaboration that Asian nations, with IMO support, had already established to combat piracy and armed robbery in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore. He expressed the expectation that a similar approach in the current trouble-spots - off the coast of Somalia, the Gulf of Aden and the wider Indian Ocean - would also pay dividends, and pointed to IMO's success in drawing up the Djibouti Code of Conduct under which regional systems and infrastructure for information sharing, training, maritime situational awareness and legislative improvements are being established.
Formally adopted in January 2009, the Djibouti Code now has 14 signatory States, all united in the effort to implement the rule of law at sea. The code was itself inspired by the Regional Co-Operation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia; which was signed in 2004 by 16 countries.
Today a truly eclectic band of shipping interests are to put pressure on the relevant authorities by way of an international petition http://www.endpiracypetition.org/ intended to persuade governments.
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