International Maritime Piracy: Books

Bluebook: Louis B. Sohn, Law of the Sea in a Nut Shell (West Publishing Company 2010). Sohn was U.S delegate to the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea from 1974-1982, and was one of the primary architects of the dispute settlement provisions of the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention. In addition, he participated in the 1945 San Francisco drafting conference that established the United Nations. This book was extremely helpful in providing a broad overview on the Convention of the Law of the Sea and related issue of piracy. I was able to discuss customary international law with the help of this book. Also, it is a 2010 edition so it was very helpful because it was up to date with all international sea piracy related legal initiatives.

Bluebook: Terror on the High Seas: From piracy to strategic challenge (Yonah Alexander & Tyler B. Richardson, eds., Praeger Security International 2009)

This series came in two volumes. It was a compilation of important journal articles, reports, congressional statements, executive statements, case studies, and other documents all related to international responses to maritime challenges. It included the text of the Convention on the High Seas, as well as the Convention on the Law of the Seas as main UN documents. It also included many of the IMO reports and documents on piracy. Overall, very good source, but would probably be something to consult after first getting a broader overview of legal initiatives to countering international piracy from another source. Otherwise, may be a bit overwhelming for the beginner law of sea piracy researcher. After consulting more general resources, this would be good to come back to for more detailed analysis. Most of the material here was legally-based, although one would not have been able to tell by its title alone.

Bluebook: Alfred P. Rubin, The Law of Piracy (University Press of the Pacific 2006). BLS has two copies of this book. This book is very easy to navigate and provides a broad view of the law on sea piracy, but also is user friendly to people of all levels of experience with the the law of piracy. It follows the origins of the law, its evolution, piracy law in the United States as well as British Practice, and ends with piracy in the 20th century. One limited feature is that it does not encompass as much international material as Terror on the High Seas does; but what it the former book lacks, this book has. Therefore, used in conjunction with Terror on the High Seas should provide for more well-rounded research. I should note that it also includes American statutes on the repression of Piracy as well as the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas.

Bluebook: Piracy at Sea (Eric Ellen Q.P.M., ed., ICC Publishing SA 1989)

Although outdated, this book was still something that was useful to consult. This is because it was published by the International Maritime Bureau and the Appendix is very informative. Also, it includes various articles not attainable from journals (each chapter was written by a different person, but it was not just a compilation series of articles). At the end of each chapter were citations for that particular chapter. Chapters were further subdivided into parts. The end of each part included a "conference discussion" on the part. Also, the book had an international focus and included various recommendations to combat piracy from the point of view of various important organizations. From this book, I found out which organizations to further look into for my research. Moreover, this book also had the text on the Convention of the High Seas of 1958 and the Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982. For a researcher who has just viewed this book in conjunction with the ones listed above, a trend emerges that these two documents will be among the most important ones on the law of international piracy.

Bluebook: Barry Hart Dubner, The Law of International Sea Piracy (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 1980)

Although this book is old, and is older than all the others, it is useful for research on the beginnings of the law of international sea piracy. The title is very specific to exactly what I was looking for, and it cited the Convention of the High Seas of 1958. It also provides the documents which make up the basic framework established by the international community with respect to the development of the law. It includes documents on the work of the international law commission and its sessions as well as possible approaches concerning revising the law of international sea piracy. Viewing these documents from a modern perspective gives insights on what ideas did or did not come to fruition and why that might be. Also, this book cites to many articles with full citations.