The Human Cost of Shipping: Risks, Safety, and Piracy for Seafarers

Although merchant seafaring is considerably safer today when compared to several decades ago, it continues to be a high-risk occupation. Rates of homicide, suicide, illness, and unexplained disappearances are higher for the 1.4 million seafarers than those of general population. Furthermore, incidents are often not easy to investigate and prosecute given the international nature of shipping and the fact that incidents often occur in international waters. For example, the fatal accident rate for British merchant seafarers between 2003 and 2012 was twenty-one times that of the general British workforce. Overall, from 2000 to 2012 there were 4,603 fatalities, of which 65 percent of lives lost were on passenger ships.

Potentially contributing to these risks is a global workforce from developing and Eastern European states that is largely outsourced using a “just in time” casual pool of labor. This workforce may have very different levels of training, certification, and experience that may influence the safety of vessels and passengers. Currently, nine nations (the Philippines, Russia, Ukraine, China, India, Poland, Indonesia, Turkey, and Myanmar) comprise two- thirds of the international merchant crews. These crews are not employed by shipping companies but by international crewing agencies. Over the last decade, the frequency of ship accidents increased while the consequences of these accidents remained stable over this time.

Although the IMO, through its various conventions, regulates most aspects of vessel safety, the ILO is the primary regulator of the seafarer.

Maritime Security.Maritime security encompasses piracy, terrorism, and criminal activities related to the safety of ships, crews, passengers, and cargos when underway as well as in port. Shipping is a unique endeavor with respect to safety, as illegal acts are often perpetrated in international waters. These ships are often registered in flag states different from their ownership state and crewed by citizens of neither state. As such, maritime security regulation requires a degree of international collaboration far in excess of most other modes of transportation. Furthermore, modern terrorism utilizes not just the ship as a means to transport weapons, but the ship itself can be used as a weapon, particularly if the ship is carrying dangerous maritime cargos, which include hydrocarbons and chemicals.

Addressing maritime security is important: research has shown that, for example, without international action against Somali pirates operating in the Gulf of Aden, shipping along the Far East to Europe route would decline by 30 percent. However, the costs of maritime security are prohibitively high and leave the industry vulnerable. As an example, currently less than 1 percent of the 230 million container voyages are inspected.

Piracy. In 2011, overall 439 incidents of piracy were recorded worldwide, with 45 captured vessels and 802 seafarers taken hostage. Currently, Somalia continues to be a prime center of piracy, and as of 2012, there were 237 reported attacks resulting in the capture of eleven ships and 222 crewmembers. Besides Somalia, Southeast Asia, the Horn of Africa, and the Gulf of Guinea also experience high levels of piracy. Piracy, however, may be underreported by up to 50 percent because ship owners may want to avoid dealing with the authorities, avoid increases in insurance rates, or conceal actions or inactions by their crews. Moreover, the globalization of the shipping industry can make it difficult to identify the victims of piracy. For example, Somali pirates captured the MV Sambo Dream in 2010, which was registered in the Marshall Islands, owned by a South Korean company, and crewed predominantly by Filipino nationals.

The LOSC provides the overall legal foundation for addressing piracy and related incidents such as armed robbery. With respect to piracy, perhaps the most important aspect of the LOSC is that the convention defines piracy as an action that can only occur on the high seas or in areas outside of national jurisdiction and encompasses “any acts of illegal violence or detention, or act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft.” Acts of piracy in territorial waters are considered domestic crimes under the LOSC. Furthermore, under the LOSC, piracy requires one ship (or aircraft) to seize another, and therefore the actions of a ship’s crew or passengers against their own ship cannot be considered piracy but may be considered mutiny in certain situations. Another key component of the LOSC regarding piracy includes the ability of states to seize pirate ships and ships under the control of pirates on the high seas, arrest persons on board, and seize cargo.

Since 2000, over thirty reports on piracy and related activities have been submitted to the UN General Assembly, resulting in twelve specific resolutions on piracy adjacent to the coast of Somalia and the Gulf of Guinea between 2008 and 2012. The IMO is the lead international agency on combating piracy and passed the Code of Practice for the Investigation of Crimes of Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships (2009) in order to facilitate the investigation of these cases.

Stowaways. Stowaways are individuals or groups of people who hide (or are hidden) on ships (or in their cargos) to flee one state for another for economic, political, or religious reasons. Addressing the issue of stowaways encompasses aspects of basic human rights, immigration and refugee policies, and efforts to combat organized crime. International agreements and conventions related to stowaways generally focus on preventing access to ports and ships rather than addressing the underlying causes (e.g., inequity and oppression) that cause people to flee their jurisdiction. In 2010, the IMO reported 253 stowaway cases involving 721 stowaways found on all types of commercial ships. Currently, nearly 50 percent of the world’s stowaways are from West Africa. Stowaways interfere with shipping, as they must be processed by the relevant authorities in port and cared for by a vessel’s crew while underway.

The overarching international law related to stowaways is the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The 1948 Declaration confers upon stowaways the right to life and freedom from torture, slavery, discrimination, and degradation. In 1967, the Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic (the “FAL,” amended in 2003) entered into force and set the formalities, documentary requirements, and procedures to be used on the arrival, stay, and departure of a ship, including stowaways. The FAL Convention was supplemented by additional IMO guidelines in 1997 and 2011. Mark Zacharias.

Further Reading: Branch, Alan E. and Michael Robarts. 2014. Elements of Shipping. Milton Park: Routledge

Gibbons, A. 1998. “Ancient Island Tools Suggest Homo erectus Was a Seafarer.” Science 279 (5357): 1635-7.

IHS Fairplay. 2011. 2011 World Fleet Statistics. Englewood, CO: IHS Markit.

International Maritime Bureau (IMB). 2013. “Piracy Falls in 2012, But Seas Off East and West Africa Remain Dangerous, Says IMB.” www.icc-ccs.org/news/836-piracy-falls-in-2012-but-seas -off-east-and-west-africa-remain-dangerous-says-imb. Accessed August 1, 2016.

IMO. 2011. Reports on Stowaway Incidents: Annual Statistics for the Year 2010, FAL.2/Circ.121. London: IMO. www.imo.org/blast/blastDataHelper.asp?data_id = 30513&filename = 121.pdf. Accessed August 1, 2016.

IMO. 2012. International Shipping Facts and Figures Information Resources on Trade, Safety, Security, Environment. London: IMO. www.imo.org/KnowledgeCentre/ShipsAndShippingFac tsAndFigures/TheRoleandImportanceofInternationalShipping/Documents/International%20 Shipping%20-%20Facts%20and%20Figures.pdf. Accessed August 2, 2016.

Lu, Chin-Shan, Chih-Ching Chang, Yung-Hao Hsu, and Prakash Mataparti. 2010. “Introduction to the Special Issue on Maritime Security.” Maritime Policy & Management 37 (7): 663-5.

Marean, Curtis W, Miryam Bar-Matthews, Jocelyn Bernatchez, Erich Fisher, Paul Goldberg, Andy I. R. Z. Herries, . . . Hope M. Williams. 2007. “Early Human Use of Marine Resources and Pigment in South Africa during the Middle Pleistocene.” Nature 499: 905-8.