Thaindian News

UNITED NATIONS (BNO NEWS) – The United Nations (UN) Security Council on Tuesday announced the possibility of establishing international tribunals to try pirates.

Members of the council called for tougher legislation aimed at prosecuting and jailing suspects caught off the coast of Somalia, requesting that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon present a report within three months on possible options for prosecuting and imprisoning suspects in connection with piracy and armed robbery at sea in the Horn of Africa.

In a resolution unanimously adopted, the 15-member body appealed to all States “to criminalize piracy under their domestic law and favorably consider the prosecution of suspected, and imprisonment of convicted, pirates apprehended off the coast of Somalia, consistent with applicable international human rights law.”

The Security Council noted efforts and highlighted the role of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia, European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and other partners in bringing suspects to justice, in cooperation with Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG).

Rebel groups in Somali’s capital of Mogadishu have consistently and violently battled the TFG, making it very difficult for piracy suspects to be tried or imprisoned there, as some of the issues have been shifted to their neighbor country Kenya.

Tuesday’s meeting came just days after B. Lynn Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs and chair of the Board of the Trust Fund to Support Initiatives of States Countering Piracy off the Coast of Somalia, unveiled $2.1 million worth of projects planned to tackle the continuing menace.

The five projects being backed by the UN Trust Fund, which was set up in January by the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia, are focused largely on efforts to prosecute piracy suspects.