"Preface" [2012] ELECD 1067; in Beckman, Robert; Roach, Ashley J. (eds), "Piracy and International Maritime Crimes in ASEAN" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012) xi

Book Title: Piracy and International Maritime Crimes in ASEAN

Editor(s): Beckman, Robert; Roach, Ashley J.

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781006849

Section Title: Preface

Number of pages: 3

Extract:

Preface
More than half of the world's annual merchant tonnage traverses Southeast
Asia's waters. With their economic and political interests closely linked
to the sea, the ten Member States (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos,
Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have long recog-
nized the need to cooperate to protect commercial navigation and com-
munications in these waters.
While there have been various efforts to combat transnational maritime
crimes such as piracy and armed robbery at sea in Southeast Asia, there
has been no study on whether ASEAN member states can muster adequate
and effective legal frameworks, consistent with the relevant international
law, to arrest, prosecute and punish the perpetrators of maritime crimes.
The issue is all the more critical in light of the seemingly intractable legal
and judicial issues confronted by the international community in dealing
with piracy off the coast of Somalia since 2007.
This book brings together international experts in the fields of law of
the sea, transnational crimes and ASEAN to examine whether and how
ASEAN member states enhance legal cooperation to combat piracy and
other maritime crimes. It argues that if ASEAN member states ratify
and effectively implement certain global and regional instruments, they
will be able to address incidents of piracy and maritime crimes in a com-
prehensive and wide-ranging manner. The global instruments examined
include the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS); the
1988 Convention on the Suppression ...