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The issue of VPDs, is it urgent to regulate?

An Estonian soldier trained in shooting and protecting merchant ships (credit: Estonian Ministry of Defence)

(BRUXELLES2) The Enrica Lexie affair and the diplomatic scale it is taking show that there is a serious problem in the use of VPDs, these armed on-board protection teams. Whether they are military, or even more private, there are a number of questions in terms of responsibility, submission to a jurisdiction, use of force that deserve to be regulated and codified.

VPD imprecision

For 4 years that anti-piracy operations have been ramping up, we know very well that there is both a legal vagueness and an operational vagueness on the use of military - and even more private - VPDs on board merchant ships. . However, it is a necessity, recognized today as helping to reduce the number of pirated ships. It would be more than time and urgent to look into a more precise status than the existing law of the sea for these VPDs, to specify their responsibilities. Because if the merchant ships have a right of free movement, the small coastal boats of the fishermen also have a right of movement, and can also claim the exclusivity of their jurisdiction. We should also specify the law of the sea here. And in particular also provide for the possibility of compensation.

Specify the law of the sea.

Work on a new convention or an addendum (which takes time), and the hypothesis of an international court seems difficult to set up (except to entrust the Hamburg court on the law of the sea with this function. But we could quickly decide to include the military VPDs, embarking on merchant ships flying one of the European flags, under the responsibility of the command of the EU Atalanta operation. This would have a certain logic, in operational matters, allowing the need to pool the means; a certain guarantee, in legal matters; and a certain cohesion in international matters. This idea had been mentioned at the time, in particular when setting up military VPDs on French fishing vessels and private VPDs on their Spanish counterparts sailing off the Seychelles. It could be time to "re-open" the file.

• Set up a compensation fund. All in all, all merchant ships are insured. The presence of VPDs on board ensures almost 100% security (no ship having embarked VPDs having been captured by the pirates; some, on the other hand, have been attacked). It would therefore be possible and desirable for shipowners, together with insurers, to quickly study the setting up of a compensation fund for fishermen who are victims of such mistakes, whether it concerns their destroyed or sunk vessels - because they were in the hands of the pirates - or, more seriously, if there is injury or death during an intervention. The case of the Lexie is not an isolated case. Far from there. And regularly, this blog echoes otherwise similar but serious cases. (this is only the tip of the iceberg as we don't have all the information).

Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).

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