Ridding The Seas of Pirates: Free Market Edition

The good people at National Review have an unusual but economically appealing idea for putting an end to the lawless tomfoolery off the horn of Africa, and for all of my peacenik readers out there no shots need be fired: privatization! The case of "what nobody owns, nobody takes care of," is especially pronounced with Somalia, which is essentially state-less, rendering it completely useless in the preserving of order within its maritime territory. Privatization is a controversial issue, but from my narrow exposure to it (mostly dealing with water allocation in South America) I have found very few objections (feel free to educate me). I have to appreciate the reference to the tragedy of the commons, which factored heavily into my understanding of microeconomics, quite probably one of the most important courses I took in college:

Predictably, the absence of ownership of these waters means no one has had much incentive to prevent activities that destroy their value — activities such as piracy. The result is a kind of oceanic “tragedy of the commons” whereby, since no one has an incentive to devote the resources required to prevent piracy, piracy flourishes. In contrast, if these waters were privately owned, the owner would have a strong incentive to maximize the waters’ value since he would profit by doing so. That would mean suppressing and preventing pirates... Rather than trying its hand at Somali state building, the international community should try auctioning off Somali’s coastal waters.