MARITIME PIRACY: GLOBAL EFFORTS TO ADDRESS IT AND THE IMPACT TO THE WORLD TRADE

Maritime transport plays an important role in the world trade and this lucrative busier which transporting six billion tons of cargo has attracted one of the world oldest crimes against the trade — piracy — to re-emerge and flourish. Along the history of mankind piracy has been recorded as a threat to maritime trade in the East Mediterranean and in the Southeast Asia. Today piracy is also occurring in other parts of the world, which has caused tremendous impact to the world trade. This paper looks into the international efforts made through the United Nations and its maritime agency to address the piracy issue and the dispatched of naval forces in the piracy zone as has been mandated by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea., Moreover there is also an information on the calculation/estimation of costs of piracy to the world trade, which is taken from a study conducted by One Earth Future (OEF) Foundation.