Abstract
Liberia reveals contingencies in state choices. I offer a narrative where the agency of states can be recovered in spite of a contested process—especially in regulating maritime PMSCs. Choices on Montreux were not independent of the strategies of other actors, especially the United States. The development is dominated by private authority and includes influence of shipping and insurance industry as well as that of the Liberian maritime authority endorsing the first blueprints for security standards on board ships that is later adopted by the International Maritime Organization.
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- 1.
Early versions of parts of this chapter were originally published as Boggero, M., “Private Security and Governance in Weak States: New and Old Cases,” Sudan Studies Association Newsletter 24 (2014), but have been substantially changed, repositioned, or have become part of different lines of argument.
- 2.
For an account of the character of Charles Taylor, cf. Waugh (2011). The author traces some of his influence to Liberia’s elite belief that Taylor was an outsider.
- 3.
The seminal contribution by David Keen noted that economic motivation prolongs conflict (Keen 1998); it led to the research on greed and grievance and to a near categorical rejection of grievances (Collier and Hoeffler 2000). While resources are central in grievances and identities but political factors are key to understand roots and objectives (Arnson and Zartman 2005).
- 4.
He referred of course to the American Colonization Society. Liberia was the political creation of a community that retraced the notorious Middle Passage across the Atlantic people to the west coast of Africa and created the new republic in 1847.
- 5.
Bryden writes that the “process was de-linked from parallel efforts to reform the national police so coherence across the security sector was an issue. And finally, the lines of accountability for this work ran between the contractor and the US Government. National ownership of security reforms was undermined by the failure to provide accountability to the nascent Liberian executive, parliament or civil society” Bryden 2012.
- 6.
The latter was signed on September 16, 2005.
- 7.
From protection services to diplomatic missions or industries, such as rubber plantations and logging companies.
- 8.
An Open Registry is an organization that registers ships owned by foreign entities. Cf. the next section for definition and context.
- 9.
Bowden include ransoms, insurance premiums, security equipment, prosecutions piracy deterrent organization, cost to regional economies ($1.25 billion), naval forces ($2 billion), and re-routing ships ($2.4 to $3 billion).
- 10.
Author’s interviews, Vienna, VA. March 2015.
- 11.
Struett et al. write that the UNSC provide the main official forums for addressing piracy, and that the Contact Group on Piracy off the coast of Somalia was created on January 14, 2009, is a forum that brings together representatives of nearly 60 countries and several international organizations (including the EU, NATO , the African Union , the Arab League, and several departments and agencies of the United Nations) (Struett et al. 2013).
- 12.
Author’s interviews, March 2015.
- 13.
This document vagueness is also justified by the evolution of regulations in this area.
- 14.
Author’s interviews, Vienna, VA. March 2015.
- 15.
Kraska writes that one crew member was murdered when the pirates shot their way into the citadel before help could arrive. “These more aggressive pirate attacks led the International Chamber of Shipping, in frustration, to issue a media release on February 15, 2011, declaring that under normal circumstances, private armed security is not recommended on board commercial vessels. But after Somali pirates executed a sailor during the attack on the Beluga Nomination, the ICS acknowledged that the ship operator must be open to the option of armed security to deter attacks and defend crews. 41 Only [sic] days later, the murder of 4 Americans by Somali pirates on board the sailing vessel Quest reopened the issue of armed security on board merchant shipping in the waters off the Horn of Africa” (Kraska 2011, p. 72).
- 16.
Author’s interviews, Vienna, VA. March 2015.
- 17.
Author’s interviews, London, June 2015.
- 18.
Thus, with the International Organization for Standardization standards set to become the unique golden rule, the IMO turns to the ISO contribution to the development of “minimum standards for the shipboard deployment of armed security guards (which) will be particularly useful to flag States , and this will in turn help ship owners who urgently need practical as well as legally acceptable solutions….”
- 19.
The Safety of Life at Sea Convention (SOLAS) was created in 1914. In 1960s, the IMO became the specialized agency of the United Nations serving as the principal venue for states to develop and implement rules to ensure safe, secure, and environmentally sound shipping throughout the world.
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Boggero, M. (2018). State and Non-State Choices in Liberia. In: The Governance of Private Security . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69593-8_8
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