Pirates based off lawless Somalia cost the shipping industry billions of dollars and they are operating in wider swaths of the Indian Ocean. To protect against the growing threat, several countries, including India, have allowed armed security guards to be deployed on ships.
The killing of the two fishermen off India's southwestern coast Feb. 15 made real the worst fears of those who had warned against the change in policy.
India accused the Italian marines of mistaking the fishing boat for a pirate ship, shooting at it and killing the two fishermen. On Sunday, it arrested the marines, who were part of a six-member security team on the cargo ship the Enrica Lexie.
With the men facing murder charges, Staffan De Mistura, Italy's foreign ministry undersecretary, flew to India to plead their case to India's deputy foreign minister, Preneet Kaur.
New Delhi says the men must be tried here because the killings happened on an Indian boat and the dead men were Indians. Rome says the shooting took place in international waters and involved an Italian-flagged ship, and the case should be handled in Italian courts.
De Mistura said the talks Wednesday were "constructive," but gave few details.
Kaur said that while they disagreed on where the men should be tried, she had assured the Italians that Indian courts were "fair and free."
"We will certainly go by our law," she said.
Italy maintains that under U.N. anti-piracy norms, military personnel are allowed on cargo ships and are part of the Italian state and thus immune from foreign jurisdiction.
Maritime organizations are questioning whether the very presence of armed security could actually increase violence on the high seas.
Earlier this week, UK-based maritime safety experts BCB International Ltd. said that the world needs to "rethink the self-protection measures used by commercial ships to ward off attacks from pirates."
