Russia calls for a piracy court

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev last week called for an international court to be set up to try alleged pirates.
The demand came after the Russian Navy recently revealed that it had captured a pirate vessel with 29 people on board off the coast of Somalia but had not yet decided where to try the suspects.
 Mr Medvedev told Russian television: “It is necessary to consider all possibilities, including the formation of some kind of international court.
“Often states where these pirates come from do not take any action; in short, they aid this kind of crime.”
In London, Nippon Foundation chairman Yohei Sasakawa used a keynote address to the International Maritime Law Institute to call for what he termed an “ocean peacekeeping initiative”.
Drawing on the experience of the Malacca Strait and Singapore where, in recent years, “piracy has declined significantly”, Mr Sasakawa pointed out that this was a result of international cooperation “in actively supporting the framework of countries that border the strait and the countries and companies that use them”.
His so-called OPK initiative would include “monitoring from air, land and sea the coastal areas near pirate strongholds” but crucially he argued there was a need to coordinate the fight on an international basis “under United Nations leadership”.
“Through the sharing of command and communications systems, as well as a common code of conduct, we should be able to look forward to well-controlled and effective activities,” he said.
Most controversially, however, Mr Sasakawa advocated copying the user-pays framework he favours to fund maritime safety in the Malacca Strait to help pay for anti-piracy operations.
“While it is critical for the international community to cooperate in dealing with piracy, I think the time has come to expect the private sector to also make various contributions,” he said.
Meanwhile, US chief of naval operations Admiral Gary Roughead told reporters after a speech at the recent Navy League conference that action against pirates on land was needed to resolve the crisis.
“Pirates do not live at sea. They live ashore. They move their money ashore. You can not have a discussion about eradicating piracy without having a discussion about the shore dimension.”
He said the area off the coast of Somalia was four times the size of Texas and there were complex legal issues involved. Moreover, it was not clear that the shipping industry wanted to begin using armed convoys to protect ships.