From Deutsche Welle: “Bjorn Seibert, a Research Affiliate for Security Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, lists the various international missions deployed: ‘You have the EU’s mission, you have NATO’s mission and then you have two Combined Task Forces led by the United States, Combined Task Force 151 and 150, which operate in the same area with the same task.’

The answer Seibert and Peter Lehr give when asked whether the four missions suffer from a lack of cooperation is clear: ‘I would say they are hampered at the moment,’ argues Lehr, a piracy specialist at the University of St. Andrews.

He points out that the different missions have different chains of command, different rules of engagement and operate under different domestic laws. That means that for example Dutch or German warships can only apprehend pirates if they pose a threat to their national interests, explains Lehr.

‘Recently a Dutch warship arrested pirates and freed Yemeni hostages, but then realizing that no national interest was threatened they had to release the pirates, which means they had to bring them on the shore again, letting them actually go back to their pirate ports and then strike again,’ says Lehr. ‘That’s the problem.'”