Source: http://piracy-studies.org/reclaiming-the-maritime-the-aus-new-maritime-strategy/
Timestamp: 2017-11-22 05:32:47
Document Index: 504643764

Matched Legal Cases: ['§18', '§24', '§20', '§9', '§11', '§11', '§18', '§43']

Reclaiming the Maritime? The AU’s New Maritime Strategy | PIRACY STUDIES
The 2050 Africa’s Integrated Maritime Strategy
The AU secretariat started to develop ideas for jointly addressing the African Maritime Domain (AMD) from 2007. A revised version of the 1993 maritime transport charter, the so-called Durban Resolution, was adopted in 2009. In that year, African Heads of State and Governments called upon the AU Commission (AUC) “to develop a comprehensive and coherent strategy” (African Union 2009: §18) – the 2050 AIM Strategy, which was eventually adopted in January 2014.
As a result, the 2050 AIM Strategy provides as a coherent policy framework that actively incorporates regional and international maritime security mechanisms, such as the DCoC, the Contact Group on Piracy of the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS), the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Ship and Port Security (ISPS) code. It has also represents the continent’s political infrastructure, in particular AU institutions and documents, such as the Peace and Security Council and the AU Constitutive Act, as well as “AU Member States, local communities, specialized regional institutions and associations, the African maritime private sector, strategic development partners and the international community as a whole”(§24).
Mutual engagement and the development of common repertoires of practices and ideas are a key element of AIMS. To coordinate multiple maritime security actors and initiatives at the continental level, AIMS 2050 urges the creation of a “common template for the AU, the RECs/RMs, and relevant Organizations” (§20), and calls on these actors to “develop, coordinate and harmonize policies and strategies” (§9). Proposed maritime governance projects, such as the Combined Exclusive Maritime Zone of Africa, a Common Fisheries Policy and a Strategic Foresight Marine Task Force (SFMTF) also provide space for mutual engagement between maritime security and governance practitioners on the continent. The strategy also projects the creation of regular review mechanisms, and a 2050 AIMStrategyHighLevelCollege of Champions (HLC2) will lobby throughout Africa for the implantation of the strategy.
The 2050 AIM Strategy is as an important component of Africa’s maritime security infrastructure, and as an effort to strengthen and to construct a more coherent African maritime security community under the strategic leadership of the AU. The strategy is the product of mutual engagement and emphasises a continental understanding of maritime security; it provides a coherent and overarching policy framework for the activities of fragmented stakeholders, infrastructures and communities; and it enables actors to connect, coordinate and organize maritime security at continental level.
Reclaiming Maritime Security beyond Piracy
Yet the 2050 AIM Strategy seeks to do more than to just strengthen a more coherent African approach to maritime security. It also seeks to give shape to the emerging African maritime security community by foregrounding a particular ‘African’ understanding and experience of what maritime security is about. The 2050 AIM Strategy defines maritime security from a continental perspective that encompasses the environmental, economic, social and security dimensions of the AMD. Its objective is to better govern these spheres in order to protect and to realize Africa’s maritime development potential. The document outlines an overall strategy “to address Africa’s maritime challenges for sustainable development and competitiveness” (§11) and “to foster more wealth creation from Africa’s oceans, seas and inland water ways by developing a thriving maritime economy and realizing the full potential of sea-based activities in an environmentally sustainable manner” (§11).
This ‘African’ conceptualization goes beyond the narrow piracy centrist perspective that has driven international maritime security efforts so far. The international community has neglected the broader environment of maritime insecurity, environmental degradation and illegal fishing in Africa. Yet it is this environment that has arguably prevented Africa from realizing its maritime development potential. The international counter-piracy approach thus reflects the interests of global economic powers dependent on maritime trade (largely western states) rather than those of African states, people and coastal communities. In fact, in their decision instigating the development of the 2050 AIM Strategy, the AU Assembly of African Heads of States and Governments strongly condemned “all illegal activities in these regions, including piracy, illegal fishing and dumping of toxic waste” (African Union 2009: §18); and the 2050 AIM Strategy even demands “appropriate compensation for the five-decades of losses due to IUU and over fishing” (§43).
It is against this background that Africa, through the 2050 AIM Strategy and other efforts, is beginning to construct a maritime security community based on its own experiences, needs and practices. It is an African attempt to reclaim the maritime security agenda from external actors and to define a coherent and development oriented maritime security strategy for the continent that serves the interests of all stakeholders. This is to satisfy the development needs of African states and people as well as international concerns over piracy and the security of global shipping lines. As the inclusive approach of the AU strategy makes clear, maritime security is a matter of good order as well as of just order at sea. Maritime security has to be provided for everyone, and maritime security governance needs to be more inclusive and provide space for the voices and agendas of less powerful groups of global society.
Africa is reasserting itself on the global maritime security agenda, and it is trying to do so on its own terms. The agenda of the 2050 AIM Strategy is certainly ambitious, and given the lack of resources for such activities on the continent, its implementation will largely depend on international funding and support. The sustainability of its maritime security community and the practices that constitute it are fragile. Recent international initiatives, such as the EU naval capacity building mission EUCAP NESTOR and development projects in Somalia, seem to indicate that a greater convergence between African and international maritime security practices is emerging. Nevertheless, for most international actors piracy is most likely to remain more important than fish and African development; and though such ‘development’ issues might be targeted within a comprehensive counter-piracy strategy (e.g. Bueger et al 2011), it remains to be seen whether or not the international community is willing to support the full implementation of the 2050 AIM Strategy beyond measures aimed at protecting international merchant shipping.
African Union. 2009. “Decision on the Report of the Peace and Security Council on its Activities and the State of Peace and Security in Africa”, Assembly/AU/Dec.252(XIII). Decision adopted by the 13th Ordinary Session of the AU Assembly held in Sirte, Libya, on July 2009.
Bueger, Christian and Jan Stockbruegger and Sascha Werthes. 2011. “Pirates, Fishermen and Peacebuilding: Options for Counter-Piracy Strategy”, Contemporary Seucrity Policy, 32 (2), 356-381.
Tagged: 2050 AIM Strategy, African Union, Security Communities
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