Southeast Asia is frequently described as a “ aristocratic continent. ” From a strategic orient of view, this relationship to the sea can be understood through an exploration of the numerous issues linked to the security of the Malacca Strait. In this emblematic corridor, the security and fluidity of merchant transportation are crucial for global economies. Around the year 2000, the growing terror of piracy and armed looting motivate regional actors such as ASEAN and extra-regional actors such as Japan and India to develop unprecedented collaborative mechanisms focused on coordinated patrols and maritime information sharing. One of these efforts, the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against ships in Asia ( RECAAP ), signed in 2006, can be seen as an matter to experiment. As they celebrate their fifteenth anniversary in 2021, RECAAP and the maritime Information Sharing Centre ( ISC ) that embodies it, both located in Singapore, are now recognized and respected contributors to maritime administration in Asia.
This article explores the nature of these consecutive efforts, characterized by their consensual access to eradicating plagiarism and armed robbery at sea, and their multinational reach. RECAAP has led to a shared sight and a multilateral framework for the maritime security and safety of the region. indeed, RECAAP represents more than a technical and functional cooperation agreement, but is based on the construction of shared nautical situational awareness in Southeast Asia. Above all, the agreement reflects the political will to plowshare data in avocation of better regional maritime domain awareness among all its “ users. ” Hence, RECAAP has contributed to the egress of a broad nautical community that goes well beyond Southeast Asia and ASEAN and can be considered a model of maritime government. This multilateral identity explains, among other things, the matter to the European Union and its Member States have in seeking greater cooperation with the organization.
THE PIRACY CHALLENGES AND THE QUEST FOR A LOCAL SOLUTION
The first Southeast Asian attempts to address the growing plagiarism and armed robbery phenomena were not convincing and fostered an image of countries prioritizing their sense of sovereignty over the condom of their citizens and the users of the Malacca Strait. however, as the economic impacts of shared nautical security challenges became increasingly clear, momentum began to build for more accommodative responses.
According to the latest datum from the International Maritime Bureau, or IMB, maritime piracy and armed robbery remains a significant security exit for a great number of countries. In 2019, 162 plagiarism and armed robbery incidents were identified around the world. even if these have declined globally, Asia remains among the most sensitive regions for maritime navigation, along with West Africa ( primarily Nigeria ). In 2019, 48 percentage of worldwide attacks were reported in Southeast Asia. The analyses of the IMB and the RECAAP Information Sharing Centre agree that the most dangerous area in Southeast Asia remains the Singapore Strait, with 31 incidents of plagiarism and armed robbery occur in the Traffic Separation Scheme area.
approximately 30 percentage of cosmopolitan shipping dealings, adenine well as a significant helping of the energy flows from the Middle East to China and Japan, travels through this critical maritime choke point per annum. As such, plagiarism and armed robbery constitutes an international security return which impacts both littoral states within the region and maritime nations the worldly concern over, necessitating a collaborative, multilateral reaction.
INSUFFICIENT NATIONAL MEANS
Countries utilize several tools to combat nautical piracy and armed looting, foremost of which is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ( UNCLOS ) and its article 101, which addresses plagiarism. Its legal provisions have been reinforced by the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation of 1988 ( SUA, Rome Convention ). individual measures left to the discretion of each country can be added. Since 2000, Southeast Asian coastal countries have reinforced and modernized their maritime administrations, naval forces, and seashore guards in load of combating piracy and armed looting at sea. Some have conducted large-scale military operations ; Indonesia, for case, has mobilized security forces in the province of Aceh during several years to fight terrorism and crime, including their nautical component. The littoral states of the Malacca Strait have upgraded their naval security forces. In 2005, Malaysia merged all of the government agencies creditworthy for the maritime domain into one organization under a unmarried command, the malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency ( MMEA ). Despite this and similar reorganizations, the civilian and military maritime security forces of all of the ASEAN countries have distillery been underfunded and under equipped to tackle recurring nautical security challenges. Indonesia and the Philippines, in particular, with their huge nautical domains, have faced a unmanageable undertaking in responding efficiently to the surge of maritime crime and its diffuse links with terrorism.
MULTILATERAL EFFORTS BORN OF LOCAL INITIATIVES
mindful about organizing their fight against plagiarism and armed robbery at ocean, three littoral states of the Malacca Strait, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, set up the Malacca Strait Patrols around 2004, with Thailand joining a few years belated. This multilateral attempt allowed states to address the international community ’ s criticism that they were apathetic. The most long-familiar components of these efforts are the MALSINDO coordinated patrols and the initiation of the Malacca Strait Security Initiative ( MSSI ). however, these efforts were curtailed reasonably by the immunity of some states to allowing the right of pursuit across territorial waters and to including countries outside the region in the management of the Malacca Strait. Despite this, information- and intelligence-sharing became institutionalized, and an forward pass surveillance component, Eyes in the Sky, was implemented as a solution of these agreements.
These ratified measures between the coastal countries of the Malacca Strait were undeniably a major step forward in inter-state cooperation to combat piracy and armed robbery in Southeast Asia. To date, they comprise one of the alone coordinated operational military responses in universe. however, a broader regional reaction to piracy and armed looting in the area was still needed, as these efforts were limited to the littoral states of the Strait. Although an campaign to integrate the stakeholders in a common entity under a single command was intelligibly made, these efforts can not be considered a total strategic success. These initiatives were slightly hampered by the reluctance of participating states to allow interventions from foreign partners. Both in policy and in practice, combating plagiarism and armed looting was perceived as entirely the privilege of local anesthetic governments.
RECAAP, A MULTILATERAL SECURITY APPROACH
The prevalence of piracy and armed looting, equally well as its potential link with terrorism, called for a larger-scale response in order to address the continue concerns of the international community. The administration of RECAAP represented a transition from primarily local to increasingly regional efforts to address these issues. Southeast Asia has a strong record of multilateralism covering economic, political, security, and cultural issues, chiefly through ASEAN. however, the region is besides characterized by a reserve on the region of many regional states to allow this multilateralism to develop in ways that may be perceived as interfering with the autonomous prerogatives of any individual state of matter. Despite these concerns, the RECAAP agreement, signed in Tokyo on November 11, 2004, and enacted in 2006, was designed to be a truly multilateral model for regional cooperation between Southeast asian countries in the field of countering maritime plagiarism and armed looting.
RECAAP was beginning signed by eight ASEAN countries, with the celebrated exceptions of Indonesia and Malaysia, vitamin a well as three countries each from South Asia ( India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh ) and East Asia ( Japan, China, and South Korea ). major international nautical nations then joined the agreement, confirming its success : norway in 2009, the Netherlands and Denmark in 2010, and the United Kingdom in 2012, followed by Australia and the United States. presently, RECAAP includes 20 countries representing a supra-regional nautical quad, with an return focus limited to Asia. France and Germany are expected to join RECAAP in the approximate future. The increasing bearing and interest of european states has encouraged the European Union to get closer to the organization and to seek more active involvement in its activities, including some capacity-building initiatives with the Southeast asian members of RECAAP. The current EU-ASEAN plan of Action includes maritime security cooperation and mentions the importance of combating piracy and armed looting against ships. As such, the CRIMARIO II project, an EU nautical security-building instrument that is well known in the indian Ocean, is now expanding into Southeast Asia in the hopes of increasing cooperation and contributing to maritime stability in the region.
functionally, RECAAP can be defined as a regional cooperation agreement and information sharing hub that promotes and enhances government-to-government cooperation, capacity building, and common legal aid against piracy and armed looting in Asia. It does not, however, have any means of enforcement or pursuance allowing it to conduct maritime patrol operations against suspected acts of plagiarism and armed looting.
FLOW DIAGRAM FOR REPORTING INCIDENTS IN ASIA
Adapted from : IMO, MSC.1-CIRC.1333-REV.1 ( E ).
The system is based on two necessity elements. The first defines the obligations of the signer states in countering nautical plagiarism and arm looting, which includes the principle of cooperation as enshrined in UNCLOS. In accession to defining piracy, which is by nature limited to the high gear seas, RECAAP has included armed robbery at sea. As a resultant role, member states are obliged to cooperate in combating plagiarism situations american samoa well as armed looting of ships to the extent of their capacities and in accordance with their respective national legislation. This can include arresting pirates or individuals suspected of violence, seizing the ships used to commit these crimes, and assisting and rescuing ships and crews targeted by plagiarism or banditry.
The second base component of RECAAP focuses on enhancing areas of cooperation between extremity governments, and is based on information-sharing, maritime capacity-building, and collaboration with other external maritime stakeholders such as the International Maritime Organization ( IMO ), the maritime industry, and shipping companies. Sharing and processing data via casual alerts or regular reports are among the most decisive components of the agreement as they enable a better collective sympathize of the maritime world. furthermore, RECAAP is structured around “ focal points ; ” i.e., designated liaison officers from the nautical, civil, or military administrations of each signer state.
A MARITIME GOVERNANCE MODEL RESPECTFUL OF NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY
RECAAP ’ randomness force does not lie in the creation of a supra-national police entity or the setting up of common patrols operating within the members ’ maritime domains, but resides in collaboration in sharing information and coordination of government responses to incidents of piracy and armed robbery at sea. Its being demonstrates that traditional inter-governmental distrust and diachronic animosities can be overcome, in the correct context, to address shared nautical security challenges. The nautical Information Sharing Centre based in Singapore was created with this in mind. The management team of this structure is made up of affair officers and representatives of RECAAP ’ s extremity states. Dependent on the voluntary contributions of each member state, its decision-making bodies are subject to consentaneous consensus. The Centre ensures the hang, collection, and action of information a well as the dispersion of analytic reports on the express of plagiarism, armed robbery, and some other forms of maritime crime. In acting as the facilitator between different national security forces and maritime authorities in their efforts to combat plagiarism and armed robbery at sea, the Centre plays an essential character.
This is no easy task, given the complicating impingement of tensions between extremity states and, even more challengingly, among different nautical security system and police enforcement actors within member states. furthermore, if coordination between a handful of neighboring states is difficult, it becomes evening more challenging on a regional level. In rate to accommodate the sensitivities of member states, RECAAP takes caution to emphasize the principle of home sovereignty. Hence the absence of provisions concerning the establishment of joint patrols or the right of pursuit that were opposed by some member states. The result of this inclusive approach to regional maritime cooperation is that RECAAP and its ISC represent replicable models for other regions facing collective nautical security challenges. In fact, the agreement and its Centre have already inspired the architecture of the Djibouti Code of Conduct developed in East Africa to organize regional cooperation for fighting Somali piracy.
decision
RECAAP finally established itself successfully because of its non-binding processes. While derived from a regional dynamic, the RECAAP enterprise fostered the internationalization of counter-piracy activities by including external actors. tied China, at first hostile to a Japan-led administration, joined the agreement. India, a key maritime player in Southeast Asia, equally supports the first step. Beyond nautical piracy and armed looting in Southeast Asia, RECAAP now has a utility and a strategic character of its own. RECAAP established itself as a central platform for public and private stakeholders involved in broader nautical security. The organization of workshops, dissemination of a “ best-practices toolkit, ” and close relationships with the International Maritime Organization and shipping companies have all contributed to making RECAAP an authoritative forum gathering a huge nautical community. This substantive network function, nurtured by the participating focal points, allows for the sustenance of necessary consensus among member countries on nautical piracy and armed looting in Southeast Asia.
RECAAP and its ISC play an authoritative role in the maritime sphere awareness system which exists in Southeast Asia, along with the Information Fusion Centre in Changi and the International Maritime Bureau Piracy Reporting Centre in Kuala Lumpur. These organizations complement each other rather than duplicate efforts as they do not have the same means and mode of mathematical process. RECAAP and IMB are focused on monitoring piracy and armed incidents at ocean. RECAAP adds to this a character of cooperation and “ maritime diplomacy ” thanks to its network in the region and its publications. The IFC, created by the Singapore Navy, is based on the permanent work of approximately 20 extraneous naval and coast guard officers who are by and large asian but besides from outside the region, and, beyond piracy and armed robbery, is monitoring proliferation and nautical terrorism threats. Working jointly, each body has an significant character to play in enriching the nautical cognition of Asia and transforming this strategic area into a highly connected region with comprehensive maritime domain awareness.
Marianne Péron-Doise is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Strategic Research, IRSEM, Paris. Her work focuses on Asia security issues with specific expertness on Northeast Asia ( Japan-Korean Peninsula ) and global maritime security topics such as emerging naval forces and key maritime theatres. She teaches classes in Maritime Security at Sciences-Po Paris as part of the International Relations Department. Marianne has occupied several senior positions on security issues in the Asia-Pacific region in the french Ministry of Armed Forces, notably Head of the Asia-Pacific Department Delegation for Strategic Affairs from 2007 to 2011. She was political Adviser at the Allied Maritime Command in Northwood, UK, from 2012–2015. She was besides special Advisor for the EU nautical project CRIMARIO I ( critical Maritime Routes Indian Ocean ) from 2015 to 2019 and joined a new development of the project as CRIMARIO II, shifting to South and Southeast Asia, in 2020.
This capacity was created when stable Seas was a program of One Earth Future .
