Questions and Emails

With the conference only days away I hope all of you are feeling as excited as we are here at the SC. While we look forward to seeing you all Thursday, this is just a reminder that if you have any questions or concerns feel free to send us an email. And if any of you sent us anything in the last few days we would also ask if you could resend it to us as we have been having some trouble with gmail. Good luck with your preparations and hope to see you all soon

NMUN background papers

NMUN is a highly respected model UN conference for university students and each year they put together some fabulous briefing packages for delegates. If you would like to see how they are approaching the problem of maritime violence and piracy you can check out the packages below!

NMUN DC Security Council Guide
NMUN NY Security Council Guide

East meets West in dealing with piracy

While organizations such as NATO and the EU have brought together the fleets of multiple nations to deal with piracy other unaffiliated countries have also been making their presence's felt. The largest and most powerful of these nations of course is China. Once seen as having its own agenda in dealing with piracy, it looks as though China may be cooperating with NATO in this regard. At the very least the two sides are "officially" talking to each other. How closely the two sides are really working together is open to speculation, but such meetings do make for excellent publicity and can always be built upon.

http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-00494AF3-30738969/natolive/news_60764.htm?

Background Paper!

Just a reminder that your background paper is an excellent resource:

Violence in International Waters

Good luck with your research, Delegates!

Conflict between pirates

Those who live Haradhere, a town in Somalia known as the piracy capital of the world, are worried about the recent skirmishes between pirates.
"The largest ransom ever paid out to Somalia's sea-bandits touched off a cycle of raids and revenge killings that has already left seven people dead since Sunday, including a civilian," writes Mustafa Haji Abdinur in an article. The large ransom - and the issues of how it will be divided among the pirates - has caused conflict, and even the pirates are worried about how it will be resolved.

In a similar vein to the previous post, I'd like to bring to you delegates attention an article, titled "You are being lied to about pirates," that makes some rather controversial, perhaps unjustified (or perhaps very justified) points about the motives of Somali pirates.
The author, Johann Hari, raises the issue of illegal fishing, saying that "We have destroyed our own fish stocks by over-exploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300 million worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster and other sea life is being stolen every year by vast trawlers illegally sailing into Somalia’s unprotected seas."
The other major issue is that of illegal waste dumping. Hari writes,

As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the U.N. envoy to Somalia, tells me: “Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it.” Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to “dispose” of cheaply. When I asked Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: “Nothing. There has been no cleanup, no compensation and no prevention.”

This may seem overly dramatic - particularly the part about the Italian mafia - it does seem to be based in reality. An article from the AFP, quoting the UN special envoy for Somalia in 2008, decries the illegal fishing and waste dumping, saying that it "is a disaster off the Somali coast, a disaster (for) the Somali environment, the Somali population."

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.