Liss, Carolin --- "The Role of Private Security Companies in Securing the Malacca Strait" [2007] MarStudies 35; (2007) 157 Maritime Studies 14

^[1] Carolin Liss is a PhD candidate at Murdoch University in Western Australia. This paper was originally presented at the Meeting of the CSCAP Study Group on Security in the Malacca and Singapore Straits, Jakarta, 8-9 September 2007.

^[2] These include in Britain, Gray Page Limited, in Germany MarineServe GmbH (MSG), in Israel G.S. Seals, in the USA the Trident Group and in Australia Counter Terrorism International (CTI), to mention just a few.

^[3] This is also the case for PSCs offering non-maritime related services. See PW Singer, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatised Military Industry, Cornell University Press, Cornell, 2003, pp. 73-5.

^[4] There are also a number of companies that offer a range of technical maritime security products, including electrical fences for vessels and non-lethal weapons.

^[5] While radical politically motivated groups do not only emerge in places of economic hardship, widespread poverty can be one reason for the emergence of such groups which can also more easily find recruits and anti-government support in poverty-stricken areas. The theory that relative deprivation can serve as a powerful motivating influence for aggression was developed by T Gurr. For more details see: TR Gurr, Why Men Rebel, Princeton: Princeton University Press for the Center of International Studies, 1970.

^[6] Aegis Defence Services Ltd, accessed 6 December 2005.

^[7] See C Liss, ‘Maritime Security in Southeast Asia: Between a Rock and a Hard Place?’ Working Paper no. 141, Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University, February 2007, http://wwwarc.murdoch.edu.au/wp/ wp141.pdf, accessed 9 March 2007. C Liss, ‘Southeast Asia’s Maritime Security Dilemma: State or Market?’ Japan Focus, 8 June 2007, http://japanfocus.org/ products/details/2444, accessed 22 June 2007.

^[8] J Burton, ‘Lloyd’s Drops War Rating on Malacca Strait’, 9 August 2006, http://bpms.kempen.gov.my/ index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7070&Itemid=0, accessed 13 August 2003. ‘Malacca Straits Removed from War Risk List’, Insurance Journal, August 2006, http://www.insurancejournal.com/ news/international/2006/08/09/71308.htm, accessed 15 November 2006.

^[9] D Boey, ‘Ship Owners Using Hired Guns. Guards Provide Anti-piracy Security for Vessels in Regional Waters’, Straits Times, 8 April 2005, p. 3. Author’s Interview with M Martino, Counter Terrorism International (CTI), Murdoch University, Perth, 16 September 2005.

^[10] Ibid; T Sua, ‘For Hire: Guardians of the Sea’, Straits Times, 15 April 2005.

^[11] ‘Malaysia Warns on Private Marine Security Escorts’, Marinelog.com, 2 May 2005, http://www.marinelog. com/DOCS/NEWSMMV/2005may02.html, accessed 6 May 2005. ‘Indonesia Rules out Private Armed Escorts in Malacca Strait’, Bloomberg.com, 2 May 2005, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000080&sid=aRlpGcMYBSME&refer=asia#, accessed 6 May 2005.

^[12] Noor Apandi Osnin, ‘Armed Escorts in the Strait of Malacca: A Challenge to Malaysia’s Governance’, Paper presented at the ‘MIMA Seminar on Private Maritime Security: Options for Malaysia’ Conference, Kuala Lumpur, 2006, pp. 16, 18.

^[13] Author’s interviews with PSC personnel in Europe, Asia and Australia between 2004 and 2007.

^[14] Alternatively, PSC employees could carry non-lethal weapons, but this seems not a viable solution at present.

^[15] See K Kramer, ‘Legal Controls on Small Arms and Light Weapons in Southeast Asia’, Small Arms Survey, Occasional Paper no. 3, Geneva, July 2001, p. 3.

^[16] The laws concerned with the control of weapons are too complex to be explained in this paper, particularly as it is unclear how these laws relate to PSCs. For an overview of legal controls in relation to arms in Southeast Asia see Kramer, loc. cit.

^[17] Author’s interviews with PSC personnel in Asia and Australia between 2004 and 2007.

^[18] Counter Terrorism International, Homepage, http:// www.cti5.com, accessed 16 September 2005.

^[19] Author’s interview with M Martino, Counter Terrorism International, 16 September 2005, Perth, Australia.

^[20] ibid.

^[21] Author’s interviews with PSC personnel.

^[22] The Arms and Explosives Act and the Arms and Explosives Licensing Division are regulating the control and licensing of the manufacture, sale, use, export, storage, and possession of arms and explosives in Singapore. The Arms and Explosives Act and any new amendments to the act can be downloaded from the Singapore government website: Singapore Government, Homepage, http://www.gov.sg/, accessed 28 December 2005. Information about the Arms and Explosives Licensing Division can be found at Singapore Customs, ‘Arms and Explosives Licensing Division’, http://www.traderegister.gov.sg/aeb.html, accessed 28 December 2005.

^[23] Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Statement at the General Debate of the First Committee on Disarmament’, 12 October 2000, http://app. mfa.gov.sg/pr/read_content.asp?View,653, accessed 29 December 2005.

^[24] For these exceptions see Kramer, op. cit., and Singapore Government, Homepage.

^[25] Author’s Interview with Stephen Weatherford, Glenn Defense Marine (Asia), 28 October 2005, Singapore.

^[26] Boey, loc. cit.; Sua, loc. cit.

^[27] For a list of relevant international laws see: Institute of International Law and Justice, ‘Private Military Companies’, New York University School of Law, http://www.iilj.org/research/PMC.html, accessed 5 January 2006.

^[28] See, for example, Hart, ‘Hart’s Code of Conduct’, Hart, http://www.hartsecurity.com/aboutus_codeofconduct.asp, accessed 2 January 2006.

^[29] See, for example: A Duperouzel, ‘The Role of Private Security in the Malacca Straits’, Paper presented at the ‘LIMA’ Conference, Langkawi, Malaysia, 2005.

^[30] International Peace Operations Association, Homepage, http://www.ipoaonline.org/home/, accessed 2 January 2006. A similar British association, named the British Association of Private Security Companies, was launched in February 2006. See British Association of Private Security Companies, Homepage, http://www. bapsc.org.uk/, accessed 8 May 2007.

^[31] International Peace Operations Association, ‘Mission Statement’, http://www.ipoaonline.org/about/mission/, accessed 2 January 2006.

^[32] For the complete list see International Peace Operations Association, ‘IPOA Members’, http://www.ipoaonline. org/membership/members/, accessed 2 January 2006.

^[33] See International Peace Operations Association, ‘IPOA Code of Conduct’, http://www.ipoaonline.org/conduct/, accessed 2 January 2005.

^[34] Ideally, companies should also be regulated and monitored by the nations in which the actual PSC operation takes place. There is a range of literature discussing the finer points of national and international laws regulating the PSC industry. See C Ortiz, ‘Regulating Private Military Companies: States and the Expanding Business of Commercial Security Provision’, in K van der Pijl, L Assissi, & D Wigan (eds), Global Regulation. Managing Crises After the Imperial Turn, Palgrave MacMillan, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, 2004; F Schreier & M Caparini, ‘Privatising Security: Law, Practice and Governance of Private Military and Security Companies’, Occasional Paper no. 6, Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, Geneva, March 2005; PW Singer, ‘War, Profits and the Vacuum of Law: Privatized Military Firms and International Law’, Brookings Institution (also published in Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, Spring 2004), http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/fellows/singer20040122.pdf, accessed 5 January 2006; T Jaeger & G Kuemmel (eds), Private Military and Security Companies. Chances, Problems, Pitfalls and Prospects, VS Verlag fur Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden, 2007, pp. 331-455. For a literature list, including material on legal regulation of PSCs of individual countries see Institute of International Law and Justice, ‘Private Military Companies’.

^[35] Author’s interview with PSC personnel, 2004.

^[36] Sethuraman Dinakar & H Maurer, ‘The Jolly Roger Flies High, as Piracy Feeds the Hungry’, Business Week International Edition, 24 May 1999, http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_21/c3630196.htm, accessed 28 December 2005.

^[37] K Malakunas, ‘Armed Escorts in High Demand on Sea’, Peninsula, 2005, http://www.thepeninsulaqatar. com/features/featuredetail.asp?file=mayfeatures102005.xml, accessed 13 May 2005.

^[38] If governments in the region want to decrease the spread and influence of PSCs in the Malacca Straits, they will have to successfully address existing security threats and combat other problems which are conducive to the success of PSCs. These include corruption within militaries and law enforcement agencies, the lack of sufficient equipment of government forces to secure national waters, and existing rivalries between countries in Southeast Asia. See Liss, ‘Maritime Security in Southeast Asia: Between a Rock and a Hard Place?’ and Liss, ‘Southeast Asia’s Maritime Security Dilemma: State or Market?’