For much of history, pirates and buccaneers constituted one of the most serious threats to maritime activities all over the world. More recently, apart from adventure stories and swashbuckling films, maritime piracy was largely thought of as a thing of the past. This began to change in 1994 when an article in the Far Eastern Economic Review drew public attention to the renaissance of a phenomenon: piracy was back, and it was becoming increasingly violent, involving huge ships in international waters. This book is based on the proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop, held in 2009 in Lisbon, Portugal. Its main purpose was to promote dialogue on the phenomenon of maritime piracy between international policymakers, law enforcement officers, port authorities and other professionals, and to provide a response to the need for research and analysis at an international level on maritime piracy and its connection to terrorism. The book does not simply report on the proceedings of the workshop, but also includes some new topics not covered by the ARW, and is organized in three sections: new methodological approaches to maritime threats; new threats and new challenges in piracy and maritime terrorism and lastly; some selected case studies: different threats, different solutions. The book offers qualified ideas, opinions and talking points to the international practitioner community, will foster debate and help law enforcement agencies and policymakers to face the new world wide maritime threats of piracy and terrorism.
