A MARITIME law expert has described as “unfortunate” a Government decision to abandon legislation on outlawing piracy in Irish waters, which would have provided a valuable international template.
Recent incidents in international and national waters are very similar to the harassment experienced by Irish fishing vessels off this coastline a decade ago, Prof Clive Symmons of Trinity College Dublin’s school of law told an international maritime conference in Dublin last last week.
“Inter-ship violence” outside territorial waters represents “a form of 21st-century piracy”, Prof Symmons said.
He said that the Law of the Sea (Repression of Piracy) Bill, which was originally moved in 2001, “might have constituted a valuable precedent for other states to take up in respect of incidents elsewhere in the world of a similar nature”.
It was “unfortunate” the Bill never made it to the statute books, partly because of objections from other EU member states including Germany and Spain.
Prof Symmons, author of several studies on Irish practice on the law of the sea, said he had originally believed piracy would have “little relevance for Ireland”, but he had been proved wrong in the light of events.
About 50 incidents of piracy were reported to the Department of the Marine between 1994 and 1999, involving “culprit vessels from EU nation fishing fleets”, principally Spain and France.
The “intimidation” included “deliberate ramming of Irish fishing vessels, destruction of nets, including snagging of nets and towing Irish fishing vessels backwards” and “other interferences”, such as “close-quartering” of Irish vessels.
Incidents were documented by one of the main industry groups, the Irish South and West Fishermen’s Organisation, Prof Symmons said, with signed statements from Irish skippers.
The only difference between the recent activities of environmental non-governmental organisation craft and Japanese whaling ships in the Southern Ocean and the experiences off the Irish coast appeared to be that the harassment motivation was not for “private ends”.
The conference, entitled Current Problematic Issues in the Law of the Sea, was hosted by the TCD school of law.