"Ships Can Be Dangerous Too": Coupling Piracy and Maritime Terrorism in Southeast Asia's Maritime Security Framework

Piracy, a criminal activity embellished in maritime Southeast Asia, has become more virulent. Maritime terrorism continues to threaten the security of regional waters and ports. Consequently, the only way to deal with piracy and maritime terrorism, which are serious threats in these waters, is to confront and fight them through effective policies and laws and their enforcement. This paper argues that in the context of the immediacies of these threats, the current limitations of international law, as well as the deficiencies within current enforcement measures due to the handicap of regional politics, one possible way forward in dealing with piracy and maritime terrorism in Southeast Asia is to couple them. In this way, extreme cases of piracy could be reclassified by international law and conventions as acts of maritime terrorism. This would ratchet the current overall threat of piracy into a significant security issue. The purpose of such an endeavour would be to push for accommodations in the regional maritime security framework by way of implementing more adaptive maritime laws and conventions, and a more integrated and efficient enforcement strategy.