Maritime Piracy and its Characterization as a Threat: Presence, Type, Arms, Violence, and Ships under Attack between 1991 and 2019

Abstract

Maritime piracy is a threat to maritime trade whose contemporary version has been legally addressed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and International Maritime Organization (IMO) and coercively by the UN and EU. The present article analyzes maritime piracy from the Copenhagen School’s theoretical perspective and its application to the International Chamber of Commerce’s annual reports on piracy, whose information ranges from 1991 to 2019. This analysis indicates two increase periods, characterized by presence, type, arms, violence, and ships under attack.