UN looks at maritime crime

Despite fall in piracy in Indian Ocean Region, other areas remain difficult.

U.N. Security Council Focuses its Attention on Maritime Crime

Transnational maritime crime is becoming more sophisticated as criminal groups exploit the open spaces of the high seas, warned Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in a United Nations Security Council hearing on Tuesday. The discussion was the first in the council’s seven decades of history to focus on this global security challenge.

“Two-thirds of the world’s surface is ocean. Nearly all of that is beyond any state’s territorial waters and largely not subject to a single state criminal jurisdiction,” said Fedotov. “In recent years the freedom of navigation is being exploited by criminal groups. Transnational maritime crime is increasingly sophisticated, and it is expanding, both in terms of size and types of criminal activities.”

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Source: maritime-executive.com