Deutsche Welle: What can the international community do to reduce the danger of piracy?

Mukundan: The problem in West Africa is largely within the national waters of the countries concerned - which is Benin or Nigeria. And therefore it falls upon the law enforcement agencies of these countries to take the appropriate action. Foreign navies may not be allowed by those countries to operate in their waters.

In Somalia, you have a completely different issue: You have the attacks taking place very far away from the territorial waters of Somalia. And Somalia is a failed state with one of the largest coastlines of Africa. So there is a real challenge here. And it requires international governments to provide their naval forces to assist in the fight against piracy.

The pirates are going further and further east, where attacks are taking place closer to the Indian coast than they are to the east African coast. So it is almost impossible for the naval forces in the numbers that they are now to try and protect us there.

We think therefore that the answer is: When they do see and identify a mother ship, which is used to conduct these attacks, you need to make an example. You need to make a very robust response against the motherships and the pirates, so that it deters other people from conducting the same kind of operations.

We need to have a uniform response by all the naval forces there. And that is where we have the problem, because the naval commanders are following the rules of engagement, which are given by their governments. And the governments all have different levels of RoE's for their naval forces.

So you have some navies, who are catching the pirates, giving them medical attention and nicotin patches and food and repairing their engines, their skiffs and sending them back to Somalia. And two weeks later, they are back at sea again, looking for ships. Whereas on the other hand, there are cases, where the naval forces have gone on a ship, which has been hijacked, dislodged the pirates, killed some of them, taken the ones that are left back to their countries to stand trial. And they may face very strong punishment, including life imprisonment in these countries.

You mentioned that there are currently about 100 pirates awaiting trial in Mumbai. Who has jurisdiction over the pirates?

Under the UN clause, the law of the sea convention, it is very clear that piracy is a crime which has universal jurisdiction. So any country which catches pirates on the high seas, has the right to try them under their laws. What is missing sometimes is the will of the governments to incur costs and the risk of bringing them over and try them. And this is a pity. But the law is there.

Is there anything that the shipowners can do themselves, to make passage through these troubled waters safer?

It started off with the best management practices, which still remain a very valid set of guidelines. But increasingly now we see vessels having private, armed teams on board. This is a very difficult area, because it is legally not clear. And here we are not talking about the law of the flag state, but we are talking of the law of the coastal state from where the weapons are coming on board the ship and through which the vessels operate.

The simple answer is, for example in Germany: would we want to have a merchant ship coming in up the Elbe river with a private, armed team from another country on board the vessel? And all countries have the same concern. So if governments want ships, merchant ships to be armed - and remember that merchant ships have not been armed for close to 100 years now - then they need to give the proper legal framework in which this can be done. Otherwise this is putting an unfair pressure on ship owners, who are doing their best to protect their crew.

Would arming the merchant ships not trigger an arms race with the pirates?

This is the fear. And it is very likely, it will happen. For the simple reason, that as vessels get armed, the pirates will try to attack the ships. They will attack the other vessels, which cannot afford to have an armed team on board. So you are making the vulnerable even more vulnerable. As more and more ships become armed - do we really believe that those Somali pirates are going to give up piracy and go back to Somalia and engage in agriculture as an option?

So, if you don't believe that, then there is only one way in which this is going to go. Which is, that they may look for more powerful weapons. Which means that the ships have to arm more. And we are on a path, from which there is no exit. You can't come back, once you go down that path. And that is really what people are very concerned about. And I think, it is very important to state that it is not necessary for most vessels going though this area to be armed.

But this is a matter for the shipowners. And they are very concerned about the crews and particularly now they are concerned. Because unlike a year ago, where the crews who were taken were not harmed deliberately, what we are seeing now is where the crews are being taken to Somalia, where they are subject to physical torture and abuse. And this places a completely different responsibility on the owners to protect the crew.

You just mentioned the core problem that for the pirates there is no option to simply go back to agriculture. So this problem is here to stay, isn't it?

We think the answer to piracy is two-fold. And they must be done simultaniously. First of all: At sea you need very robust action against the motherships. So that you stop them from conducting further attacks against the ships. And simultaneously, we need to refocus the attention of the international community and the UN and others to provide help and assistance to south-central Somalia, where the pirates are coming from.

South-central Somalia is an area, which has had no direct investment for many decades. And the conditions there are very dire: There is a drought there, where the elderly and the young are dying. For those young people there, there is nothing else to do. So that is where the aide is going to be refocused. And I think you need to have the strong action at sea and the supportive action in Somalia to deter the pirates. It is absolutely vital. Doing one without the other will not work.

Interview: Matthias von Hein
Editor: Rob Mudge