Since its establishment, the IMB Piracy Center has operated 24-hours a day throughout the year, and dedicated itself to the prevention of piracies through collecting piracy-related information from all over the world, distributing necessary information and alerting sailing ships and governmental organizations as well as other activities. However, promoting international cooperation to control piracy has not progressed. We cannot see many valuable results other than that the piracies decreased sharply since 1992 when a new cooperative initiative in combating piracy and armed robbery in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore was agreed to by three coastal countries; Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.
Background of the Increase of Piracies
Piracies are still occurring. Moreover, piracies have become atrocities: homicide of ships' crews, and have become more organized day by day. Among many related factors, the first is that pirates are using advanced scientific technologies. For example, once a small-size boat gets a powerful ship engine it can easily maintain a speed of 30 knots (55 kilometers/hour), being able to outrun naval vessels. Combined pirate action with partner ships became easier because of the use of Global Positioning System (GPS), which uses a satellite. Computers and cellular phones make it easier to get information about targets.
Today the pirates can procure ideally appropriate tools for their organized plot actions. Thus they maintain high ability to operate large-scale and elaborate plots.
The second factor is the existence of pirate sanctuaries. The Rome Convention of 1988 admits nations' right to pursue, arrest, and punish pirates, based on each country's national laws, while it obliges the country where acts of piracy occurred to surrender the foreign criminals, to prosecute, and to punish. There should not be safe places for pirates. In fact, however, there are non-participating countries among Treaty members, and there are countries which participate but which are not able to maintain effective measures against pirates, as well as countries which purposely do not take any measures against pirates. These listed countries are virtual pirates' sanctuaries today. As a result, there was a case, where a chance to arrest pirates whose location was known, was not realized.
The third factor is the increasing confidence of pirates. Since pirates had never been arrested till the Rainbow case, piracy has been perceived as a safe and profitable business. By repeating piracies, criminal skills have been perfected. Pirates have armed themselves heavily using money from previous piracies. Their plots are so daring that they kill and injure ships' crews and seize ships. The losses are increasing. Referring to the Rainbow's case, its approximately 7,000 t aluminum cargo was valued at about 1.2 billion yen (US$10.9 million*) and the ship was able to be sold with forged certification for over 1 billion yen (US$9.1 million*). *US$1=JPY110
On the other hand, it is clear that efforts to keep shipping safe are insufficient. There are three factors in the increase of piracies: the change of ships' operating systems, insufficient information on damages, and the lack of efficient measures against pirates.
The first factor is the changes in ship operating systems, i.e., a decline in the ability to cope with pirates.
