Abdulh Wali-I-Musi, (age to be determined) is facing trial in the U.S. for his action in the pirating of the U.S. merchant ship. (See last week’s entry.)

There are many questions to be answered and the trial will determine whether he is guilty or innocent, at least according to U.S. law.

The question whether they are pirates or extortionists is legitimate. Historically, pirates capture the ships and cargo. These young men capture the ships and take the crew hostage for a ransom and then return the ship, cargo and crew.

What the trial may not address are the circumstances in which these teenagers are recruited to perform these unjustifiable and unacceptable acts.

Some might argue that it is irrelevant, that a crime has been committed and that someone has to pay.

There is however a difference between an excuse and an explanation. There are no excuses for such acts but sometimes explanations can lead to prevention.

Below are some undisputed facts.

• Somali is one of the world’s poorest countries.
• The average wage in Somalia is $2 a day.
• According to the UN, waste, including nuclear waste is being dumped illegally and regularly within the territorial waters of the country thus dramatically reducing fishing in those waters and depriving Somali of one of its source of income.

There has not been so, far any fatalities among the hostages taken by the pirates. They have all been freed once the ransom was paid.
People that are desperate and have “nothing to lose” do desperate things. It is true that there are millions of people that are desperate and yet they don’t resort to violence and terrorism. However, we should not ignore the correlation between despair and violence.

It is the responsibility of the rich to alleviate the harsh living conditions of the poor, whether on an individual level or on a global level. Rich nations have a responsibility towards the less fortunate.

We should give people hope and “something to lose.”

Professor Armand Abecassis, French Jewish philosopher and author once said that at the Judgment Day we will not be able to give, as the excuse, for not helping the poor, that we did not have enough because the answer will be: “Yes, but you ate.”

Terrorism and crime has to be opposed with full determination but addressing some of the causes of despair in the world could greatly reduce its occurrence.

The release last week of captain Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama made captive by the Somali pirates was amazing and close to a miracle. He is truly a hero. He offered himself to be taken as a hostage in exchange for the lives of his crew.

The official position of the U.S. government as well as the government of Israel is never to pay ransom in exchange for hostages, nor to grant other demands of terrorists. The government of Israel as agreed in the past to exchanges of prisoners.

Whether one should pay ransom to save a life is a particularly difficult ethical dilemma.

Paying a ransom will encourage more kidnapping but refusing to pay may cause the death of the hostage.

If one takes the principle approach (or Kantian) approach that one should only do what would be acceptable if universally practiced, then payment is not an option. Universal kidnappings and the payment of ransoms would lead to total chaos.

If on the other hand one takes the value-based approach and one believes that saving a life is the most important value, than of course one has to pay.

Tracey Kidder, the founder of Institute for Global Ethics says that this case is a typically case of a individual versus community dilemma not one of right versus wrong.

A third approach would be to try to apply the Golden Rule (or Biblical) approach of not doing unto others what we do not want done to us. This approach is even more problematic because the decision maker is rarely the hostage!

Negotiations are often helpful. In the case of Captain Phillips the negotiators were offering to let the pirates go free in exchange for the life of the captain. That could have been an acceptable solution. However when the life of the captain was threatened, force was the only remaining option. Three pirates were shot and killed and the captain rescued. The remaining pirate, who was on board of the ship and negotiating was taken into custody.

Often, in ethics there are no perfect solutions and one has to choose the lesser of two evils, the one least harmful. However we should remember as Max Lerner, the American politician and columnist once said, that:

“When you choose the lesser of two evils, always remember that it is still an evil.”

Last week I attended a conference organized by “Partnering against Corruption Initiative” (PACI.) an initiative of the World Economic Forum. The sessions were superbly organized and were both informative and inspiring. Keynote speakers included Samuel DiPiazza the CEO of PricewaterhouseCoopers who was hosting the event and Richard Daley, the Mayor of Chicago who created the first office of compliance for the City of Chicago that is independent from all other government offices.

There were more than 60 participants from Fortune 500 and other global corporations. Each had an interesting story to tell.

Ruder Finn is a signatory of the initiative and is a member of the Task Force. Ruder Finn is (or rather always has been) committed to a “Zero-tolerance policy towards bribery” and will develop a practical and effective implementation program for the Agency.

Corruption and bribery costs an estimated 5% of Global GDP or $2.6 trillion a year.

It is a major, if not the major cause of the disastrous state of the economy of most developing countries. If the funds lost in corruption were used as intended, world hunger could be drastically reduced and many diseases cured.

Although realistically corruption will never be completely eradicated, its practice can be dramatically reduced if anti-corruption measures are implemented and world governments are enlisted to give their active support to these measures.

It is a monumental task but there is hope. Since the implementation of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (FCPA), corruption has been dramatically reduced worldwide. (FCPA imposes severe penalties and jail time for U.S. companies involved in bribery whether the crime is committed in the US or abroad.)

Cobus de Swardt, the managing Director of Transparency International (a global anti-corporation organization and founding partner of PACI) told us that there was reason for optimism. He said that if someone had told him, some 15 years ago, while he was in jail in South Africa because of his opposition to Apartheid that the SA regime would fall and/or that the U.S would have an African-American President, he would not have believed it. The world is changing. Some governments have fallen because of corruption. Corruption is more and more viewed not as just “the cost of doing business” but is increasingly perceived as simply “no longer acceptable.”

Corruption violates ethical values such as fairness, justice, honesty and transparency. We each can play a role in fighting corruption because it happens ever day and at many different levels.

I have heard the following inspiring quote from Edmund Burke more than once at the conference and it well represents the attitude of those present.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”