3. The Indian Ocean Region Maritime Security Risk Context

The limitations inherent in a risk assessment based upon judgements from a single strategic analyst are acknowledged. Where possible, multiple perspectives have been engaged that reflect different extra-regional, regional and subregional priorities, along with a range of professional and experiential backgrounds. The risk assessment process can involve scenarios and other techniques designed to assist in developing and understanding potential risks and vulnerabilities.

See UNCLOS Article 24 ‘Duties of the coastal state’; Part VII ‘High Seas’, Section 1 ‘General Provisions’ and Section 2 ‘Conservation and Management of the Living Resources of the High Seas’; Part XI ‘The Area’; Part XII ‘Protection and Preservation of the Marine Environment’; Part XIII ‘Marine Scientific Research’; and Part XIV ‘Development and Transfer of Marine Technology’.

A summary of accession and ratification of selected maritime security–related international conventions and protocols by IOR littoral and important extra-regional states is provided in the Appendix.

The ongoing crisis in the South China Sea is a case in point. Various parties selectively refer to UNCLOS, including the United States and China, to support their positions.

Accession by Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) states to the 1979 SAR Convention is low, with several ASEAN states also being IOR states. In 2015–16, the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) convened a study group to look at harmonization of maritime and aeronautical search and rescue in the India–Asia-Pacific region. One of the key recommendations in the resulting CSCAP Memorandum is that all regional states should accede to the 1979 SAR Convention.

As permitted under UNCLOS Part II, Article 33, and Part V.

Under UNCLOS Part VI.

UNCLOS Part II, Section 3 documents the “Right of Innocent Passage in the Territorial Sea”; Part III provides for passage through straits used for international navigation by defining the concepts of “Transit Passage” and “Innocent Passage”; Part IV provides for the “Right of archipelagic sea lanes passage” through archipelagic states; Part V, Article 58 specifies that the same freedoms of navigation that apply to the “High Seas” provided in Part VII also apply in EEZs.

The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment met at Stockholm, 5–16 June 1972.

United Nations, Report of World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, South Africa, 26 August–4 September 2002, 8.

Adopted at the 17th plenary meeting of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, 4 September 2002.

Rayfuse and Warner (2008, 402) observed: “High seas management is, however, currently fragmented among a variety of sectoral and geographically based bodies, including the treaty regimes established under the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs). This decentralized, fragmented regime gives rise to a number of difficulties and gaps in both governance and regulation, not to mention in implementation.”

For example, in 2012, the UNGA declared that it “calls upon all States, directly or through regional fisheries management organizations and arrangements, to apply widely, in accordance with international law and the Code, the precautionary approach and ecosystem approaches to the conservation, management and exploitation of fish stocks … Encourages States to increase their reliance on scientific advice in developing, adopting and implementing conservation and management measures, and to increase their efforts, including through international cooperation, to promote science for conservation and management measures that apply, in accordance with international law, the precautionary approach and ecosystem approaches to fisheries management, enhancing understanding of ecosystem approaches, in order to ensure the long-term conservation and sustainable use of living marine resources.”

Forty-eight countries are currently designated by the UN as “least developed countries” (LDCs). IOR states listed as LDCs include: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Timor-Leste, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, Yemen and Zambia. The list of LDCs is reviewed every three years by the UN Economic and Social Council, in the light of recommendations by the Committee for Development Policy (CDP). The following three criteria were used by the CDP in the latest review of the list, in March 2012: “(a) A per capita income criterion, based on a three-year average estimate of the gross national income (GNI) per capita, with a threshold of $992 for possible cases of addition to the list, and a threshold of $1190 for graduation from LDC status; (b) [a] human assets criterion, involving a composite index (the Human Assets Index) based on indicators of: (i) nutrition (percentage of the population that is undernourished); (ii) health (child mortality ratio); (iii) school enrolment (gross secondary school enrolment ratio); and (iv) literacy (adult literacy ratio); and (c) [a]n economic vulnerability criterion, involving a composite index (the Economic Vulnerability Index) based on indicators of: (i) natural shocks (index of instability of agricultural production; share of the population victim of natural disasters); (ii) trade-related shocks (index of instability of exports of goods and services); (iii) physical exposure to shocks (share of the population living in low-lying areas); (iv) economic exposure to shocks (share of agriculture, forestry and fisheries in GDP [gross national product]; index of merchandise export concentration); (v) smallness (population in logarithm); and (vi) remoteness (index of remoteness).”

Variously referred to as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria) and ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), and increasingly being referred to as ‘Daesh’ in the West, an acronym of the Arabic words that mean the same as ISIS: Al Dawla al-Islamyia fil Iraq wa’al Sham, used by some Western governments in order to reduce IS legitimacy.

‘Caliphate’ is a term used to describe a form of Islamic government led by a ‘caliph’—a person who claims to be a political and religious successor to Prophet Muhammad and a leader of the entire Muslim community.

Somalia is listed at number 1. Other IOR states in the top 20 include: Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Pakistan and Kenya; with Burundi, Eritrea, Uganda, Myanmar (Burma), Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Timor-Leste, Egypt, Iran, Malawi, Rwanda and Cambodia also rated highly.

The 12 Failed States Index criteria are grouped as follows: Social: Demographic Pressures, Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), Group Grievance, and Human Flight and Brain Drain; Economic: Uneven Economic Development, Poverty and Economic Decline; Political: State Legitimacy, Public Services, Human Rights and Rule of Law, Security Apparatus, Factionalized Elites and External Intervention.

For example, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Djibouti.