What Went Wrong When Regulating Private Maritime Security Companies

Abstract

When regulating private maritime security companies arose as a pressing issue in 2012, a number of key actors made a conceptual choice that turned out to be a mistake. The discussion centered on whether private maritime security companies (PMSCs) were primarily a subset of the security industry or the maritime industry. At the time, PMSCs’ principal activity was to provide armed guards on ships transiting the High Risk Area off Somalia. Since they were then considered necessary supernumeraries to the crews of commercial vessels, representatives of the shipowners won the argument that PMSCs should be treated as part of the broader maritime industry. The main regulatory initiatives, therefore, were divorced from existing private security accountability initiatives and were developed in such a way as to suit the needs of commercial vessels in transit. This approach, however, has proved shortsighted. Even after the first successful attacks in 5 years, armed transits off Somalia are a fraction of what they used to be in terms of both frequency and financial value. But the PMSCs that have survived this bust period have sought and found work performing other services in the maritime space. Unfortunately, however, those activities are generally not covered by the regulatory initiatives that were produced under the erroneous notion that private maritime security companies are more maritime service providers than security service providers. The consequence, therefore, is that the private maritime security industry, as it currently operates, is largely unregulated.

To understand the nature of this accountability gap, it is necessary to review (1) the private security regulatory initiatives that were rejected when addressing PMSCs, (2) what has been done to regulate PMSCs specifically, and (3) what PMSCs are now doing. Only then can this analysis really delve into why current measures do not adequately cover the private maritime security industry.