Historical piracy and its impact

Abstract

During most of the twentieth century piracy was thought to be long gone. Following the end of the Cold War, international piracy on the high seas has increased at an alarming rate. This chapter begins by examining the history of piracy in European, New World, African, Indian, Southeast Asian, Australian, and East Asian waters, before turning to an analysis of the types of piracy, the legal definitions of what is piracy versus maritime crime, and those geographic factors that determine whether an attack is piracy on the high seas or maritime crime in a particular country’s sovereign waters.