The positives of piracy?

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/748867--upside-to-somali-piracy-better-fishing?bn=1

An article in the Toronto Star points out that while piracy has damaged international shipping, it has helped local fishing. Local fishermen are unable to compete with large trawlers, who come from all around the world. One estimate says that the value of illegal fishing is between 90 and 300 million dollars a year - and they clean out the waters, leaving local fisherman who hope to make $12 night struggling. However, as Somali pirates have grown increasingly active in the past years, they have frightened away the illegal fishers, allowing for the quality of life of Kenyan fishermen to raise dramatically.

As Clive Schofield (a 'research fellow with the Australian Centre for Ocean Resources and Security and the University of Wollongong') points out, many of nations who have sent warships to combat piracy have direct connections to the foreign fishing vessels who "steal Somalia's offshore resources."

He writes that "This situation has led some pirates to justify their actions on basis of illegal foreign fishing activities – styling themselves 'coastguards' and characterizing ransom demands as 'fines... Without condoning acts of violence at sea, it is clear that the Somalis who hijack shipping off their coast are in fact not the only 'pirates' operating in these waters".

As delegates prepare of the conference, they must ask themselves why the Somali pirates are the enemies, and not the illegal foreign fishing boats. Indeed, perhaps the crimes of the former will not be resolved without confronting the crimes of the latter as well.