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Almost every country has made maritime piracy and sea robbery a crime, and numerousintergovernmental and industry initiatives have urged states to adopt antipiracymeasures. Criminalization alone, however, has not solved the problem. States have beenreluctant to search for pirates for numerous reasons, including the cost of antipiracypatrols, the suspicions of neighboring countries, and the persistence of unsettled territorialclaims. By contrast, modern pirates may be highly mobile, and can be equippedwith sophisticated navigational equipment and powerful weapons.Despite these difficulties, several antipiracy measures are in place, including improvedship registration and identification systems (such as ShipLoc); the IMB's PiracyReporting Center, which has been supplemented by such regional antipiracy agreementsas ReCAAP; and coordinated antipiracy patrols like MALSINDO. In manyregions, such as the Malacca Strait, coastal states have made fighting piracy a priorityand have achieved substantial progress.Success in piracy suppression will ultimately require coordinated efforts by states andshipowners. Almost all the many proposals for international cooperation are voluntary.They take time to build, and none are likely to be effective in all situations. For theforeseeable future, therefore, maritime security advocates will need to remain firm intheir commitments to a comprehensive range of policies—national and multinational,on land and at sea—if they hope to control piracy.The international community can increase cooperation in a number of areas to managepiracy. It can ensure that the ISPS Code is enforced by flag states and port states. Itcan create a global surveillance system for international shipping. It can ensure thatships can alert authorities if attacked. It can ensure that piracy alerts are promptlyreported to the appropriate flag-state and port-state authorities. It can ensure thatmaritime forces have the legal authority to respond and are prepared to do so whennecessary. It can encourage affected countries to enact domestic legislation underwhich pirates can be tried. However, when these efforts fail, as they clearly have offSomalia, naval force will inevitably be called upon as the weapon of last resort.