Maritime Piracy

Within less than a decade piracy has been turned from a marginal economic problem into a global security problem. A surprising array of international actors addresses piracy and coordinates their activities. In this contribution we interrogate this astonishing story of international cooperation. We argue that what we observe here is a global security governance arrangement under construction. We conduct a praxiographic analysis of the current counter-piracy governance arrangement. A praxiographic analysis takes as the main unit of analysis practice, that is, collective patterns of action which entail speech and doings. Based on this evidence we carry out what can be called an “informed speculation” about the future of the arrangement. Based on the notion of macro-securitization we develop three different forms of expectations (or scenarios) of what characterizes the piracy governance arrangement: 1) an interest based “alliance” or “coalition of the willing”; 2) as a forming “security community” of cosmopolitan or regional scale; or as a 3) hybrid “global security assemblage”.

In this article I provide the first systematic investigation of the justification of Somali pirates. Drawing on a practice theoretical perspective I show how piracy is justified by a grand narrative that projects piracy as quasi-state practice of the protection of sovereignty against foreign intruders. Paying attention to narrative provides an explanation for the persistence of piracy and assists us in understanding the phenomenon. Relying on publicly available interviews with pirates, I deconstruct this grand narrative, show which elements are aligned and detail the different functions of the narrative in the light of the situation in which it is told. The article develops an alternative perspective on piracy based on the study of practice, narrative and situation which will also be useful to understand other forms of illicit or violent practices.

Neorealists typically suggest that when it comes to matters of international politics, non-state actors (NSAs) count only in so far as they act as agents of nation-states, and that if they are not such agents, then their role is merely epiphenomenal, so essentially irrelevant. This thesis argues that this is certainly not true when it comes to key areas of concern for international maritime security. NSAs here may employ the traditional tools of advocating and lobbying that leave neorealists unimpressed, but they do more than this.  Increasingly they have forced policy changes by assuming roles that states cannot or will not perform at sea. In making this argument, this thesis draws on three different case studies; irregular maritime migration, piracy, and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. In each of these cases we find that the actions of NSAs at sea have a direct and contributory effect on the way states are or are not responding to the security concerns in international waters.  This capacity is clearly bound up with the absence of sovereign control over the high seas.  The long-standing ‘freedom of the seas’ doctrine opens a space for conflicts between the state-centric conceptions of security and national interests of states on the one hand, and (human) security, trade and environmental concerns on the other, that NSAs are well placed to fill.

Cette communication propose de revenir sur le terme « viking » en analysant la notion de piraterie dans les sources norroises. Si les historiens sont familiers des témoignages des victimes de ces pirates du Nord, les sources norroises demeurent encore trop méconnues hors de Scandinavie. Les sagas, chroniques rédigées essentiellement au XIIIe siècle, sont des récits provenant des descendants de ces fameux Vikings et jouissant depuis ces vingt dernières années d’un regain d’intérêt de la part des historiens. 
Le mouvement de piraterie des Vikings, daté approximativement du VIIIe au XIe siècle, marqua profondément le Moyen Âge. De la route de l’ouest (vestrvegr) à la route de l’est (austrvegr), l’œkoumène des Vikings s’étendait de Terre-Neuve à Constantinople et de l’Islande au Maghreb. Ces pirates furent à l’origine de changements dans l’ensemble du monde médiéval : création d’États et de dynasties, consolidation du pouvoir, transfert des richesses, imposition de tributs aux peuples vaincus, explorations, mercenariat, etc. 
Devant la foule de problèmes soulevés par l’étude des Vikings, nous proposons ici de revenir à la notion de piraterie au sein des sources norroises. Nous tenterons tout d’abord de revenir sur la sémantique du mot víkingr et du champ lexical qui lui est associé. Puis à travers divers témoignages issus des sources norroises, nous essayerons de définir les enjeux et modalités de la piraterie vue par les Scandinaves.

Mots-clés : Vikings, piraterie, sagas, histoire maritime.

"The International Criminal Court (ICC) was established to prosecute crimes that ‘‘threaten the peace, security and well-being of the world’’. Maritime piracy has a long history as a threat to international security and was in fact the first international crime. Yet piracy was excluded from the Rome Statute. In the years since the drafting of the Rome Statute, piracy has increased dramatically to become more like the threat it was in the ‘‘Golden Age of Piracy’’. Criminal accountability for piracy has been minimal, due to logistical and jurisdictional difficulties. This paper offers an analysis of the potential of the ICC for prosecuting pirates: why it should be considered as a potential forum for
ensuring criminal accountability for piracy, how piracy fits within the ICC’s jurisdiction, and whether or not piracy should be added to the Rome Statute as a stand-alone crime or under the rubric of crimes against humanity."

In late 1827, the crew of a Brazilian slaver, the Defensor de Pedro, mutinied and became pirates. The article follows the narrative of their attacks on ships, including the British Morning Star off Ascension Island in February 1828 and the American merchant Topaz. The Spanish authorities in Cádiz captured most of the crew and tried and executed them. Their captain, Benito de Soto, was tried and hanged in Gibraltar. Using trial papers the article reconstructs the events. It then examines how reworkings of the narrative have changed mass murderers and rapists into popular heroes, both in the general literature on piracy (e.g. Phillip Gosse and Basil Lubbock) and in more recent academic literature and in public celebrations. It argues that this has resulted from misunderstanding and misusing the theories of social banditry and working-class revolt put forward by Eric Hobsbawm and Marcus Rediker, and from commercialisation. Keywords Benito de Soto, Defensor de Pedro, Morning Star, piracy, pirate images, popular celebrations of piracy Lucette Valensi used the word 'chronophage', not in its usual sense of 'time-wasting', but with its literal meaning of 'eating time'. 1 She was talking about how governments created political symbols out of past events, leaving blank pages in national histories

V. K. Gubarev
Sanctioning and investing of the privateering expeditions in the West Indies (the first half of the XVIIth Century)

The given article contains the analysis of the particularities of approbation and investing the Dutch, English and French privateering expeditions, which were directed against the Spanish trade navigation and coast settlings in the Caribbean. The author notes that sea robbery in the West Indies had not unprecendented development if was not an official support of governments and investments of businessmen.

V. K. Gubarev
The code of the buccaneers: lifestyle and custom of the pirates of the Caribbean (1660-1690)
            The given article contains the analysis of lifestyle and custom of the buccaneers of the West Indies. The author emphasizes that relations between buccaneers were founded on democratic principles of the liberty, equality, fraternal solidarity and mutual aid. This relations were not dependent from their national or social origin.

Piracy in the Gulf of Mexico during the first decades of the 19th century lead to greater enforcement.  However, because much of the piracy was being committed by vessels of unofficial States in rebellion, President James Monroe used the acts of robbery to place naval vessels to protect the vital commerce. 

The capture of Jean Lafitte's pirate cruiser Le Brave, set into motion the eventual United States hegemony in the southern waters.  The trials of the pirates also indicated that mandatory sentencing could be cruel and unjust.  President Monroe, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams worked to place humanity in the justice system by primary punishment of the ring leaders and those found guilty of heinous crimes such as murder at sea.

This paper identifies the root causes and general typology of the widespread phenomena of piracy off the coast of Somalia. It shows that piracy in this region started as a direct response to illegal fishing with widespread claims of hazardous waste dumping offering added moral justification. It argues that the two international crimes that are the root causes of Somali piracy constitute corporate terrorism at sea. The alacrity of the earliest illegal trawlers that were captured by the fishermen to pay ransom unleashed the scourge of criminal/ransom piracy that has overshadowed – in figures and discourse – 'defensive' piracy. Restoring the state and combating poverty can help minimize the favorable conditions that latter-day pirates exploited to launch their trade; but will not eradicate piracy without successfully containing the corporate terrorism that triggered it in the first place. Moreover, combating poverty among fishing coastal communities require the eradication of illegal fishing.

From Hollywood films to some Chinese popular perceptions of their Eastern neighbors, piracy and pirates retain a powerful hold in contemporary culture. However, it is their most recent incarnation in areas like the Gulf of Guinea, the Malacca Straits, and the Horn of Africa, that is carefully followed by anybody involved in maritime affairs, from ship owners and operators to naval officers and international lawyers. Among other aspects of piracy, the legal regime of pirates and operations against them is of the foremost importance, and therefore any volume devoted to them deserves a careful look.

This paper examines the regulation of piracy jure gentium and armed robbery at sea in international law applicable globally and applicable only in certain region. This research will review the elements of piracy jure gentium and armed robbery at sea then made a distinction between both crimes. It will be found that there are problems that still not legally regulated in existing international regulation concerning piracy jure gentium and armed robbery at sea or it has been regulated but still cause problem in the prosecution of both crimes. It is a normative research which concludes that the regulation of armed robbery at sea is found only in regional international legal rules, unlike the regulation of piracy jure gentium that exist in international rules that applied globally. The existing regulations leave problems concerning the existence of areas where a crime such as piracy-like act will be difficult to categorize as piracy jure gentium or armed robbery at sea.
Keywords : Piracy, Armed Robbery at Sea, Law of the Sea

The rise and decline of Atlantic piracy has been used to gauge the level of commercial, administrative, naval, and diplomatic control that Britain exercised in the Atlantic. Indeed, historians have suggested that by 1730, Britain had eradicated piracy in the region. These studies credit a governmental campaign of law enforcement and moral persuasion for a revolutionary shift in public attitudes against piracy. A close examination, however, reveals that piracy flourished in Atlantic waters well into the nineteenth century, and that Britain’s command of the region was not nearly as thorough as some have suggested. Old practices and beliefs regarding piracy’s legality and propriety persisted in the face of imperial attempts to effect change—Britons continued to regard “armed commerce” as wholly conventional and legitimate. Piracy was eventually ushered out of the Atlantic indirectly and inadvertently, not through forceful confrontation at sea and port, but in response to the reduced profitability of contraband.
  Britain’s ineffective anti-piracy campaign reveals the limits of British power at sea, but also on land, vis-à-vis its constituents. Violence and property losses at sea were useful to authorities in their efforts to articulate differences between the illegitimate violence of pirates and smugglers, and legitimate force wielded by the government. And yet, the government’s attempts to extend its jurisdiction beyond coastal waters, monopolize violence, and sanction some forms of maritime commerce while delegitimizing others, were consistently resisted, ignored, and thwarted by large swaths of British society on both sides of the ocean. British subjects retained an archaic and localist conception of society, state, and law, and resisted legal and bureaucratic structures put in place by landed governments to facilitate state building. 

  The chronological discrepancy regarding the passing of piracy and the resultant misconception regarding Britain’s control of the Atlantic are products of historians’ modernist definition of piracy. This anachronistic understanding of piracy obscures the continued activity of pirates in the Atlantic during the “long eighteenth century” and gives credence to the presumptions of eighteenth-century governments to monopolize the use of force at sea.

В монографии проведен историко-правовой анализ сотрудничества государств в борьбе с морским пиратством, а так же теоретико-правовой анализ современных международных соглашений в рассматриваемой сфере. Осуществлен сравнительно-правовой анализ отечественного уголовного закона в части ст. 227 УК РФ на предмет его соответствия международному праву. Определены правовые признаки отграничения преступления «морское пиратство» от других преступлений, посягающих на безопасность морского судоходства. Рассмотрена правовая основа участия Российской Федерации в межгосударственном сотрудничестве в борьбе с морским пиратством.
Монография рекомендуется для научных сотрудников, преподавателей, студентов, аспирантов, а так же всех интересующихся вопросами сотрудничества государств в борьбе с преступлениями международного характера.

The problem of contemporary piracy has led to the rise of a complex organizational field. A myriad of organizations have become active in counter-piracy. This chapter sets out to disentangle the field of counter-piracy. A systematic mapping of the different practices and actors engaged in counter piracy is presented. Counter-piracy activities are captured as organized in different functional streams or categories of practice, including governance, epistemic, military, law enforcement, development stream, and humanitarian streams. The intention behind this mapping is that in the meantime it has become very difficult to navigate through the complex organizational jungle of counter-piracy. Coordinating the diverse counter-piracy actors is an ongoing challenge not the least to avoid contradictory projects, and duplication. It is also important to guarantee a better management of knowledge about piracy and counter-piracy and to ensure that lessons learned by one agency are recognized and considered by another. The chapter reviews over fifty organizations and their contribution to the counter-piracy field.

W artykule została przedstawiona biografia Charlesa Vane'a, angielskiego pirata żyjącego na przełomie XVII i XVIII w. Opisano m.in. jego barwne przygody na niespokojnych karaibskich wodach. Dla lepszego zrozumienia czasów i realiów, w jakich żył wspomniany bohater, czytelnikom przybliżono również ówczesną sytuację polityczną na Antylach oraz specyfikę karaibskiego piractwa.

(Forthcoming) This paper analyses the importance of Pirate English in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries through lenses of contemporary linguistic theories and retrospective research provided by studies in Creole cultures of Caribbean. Since, history and historiography of the Golden of the Piracy are predominantly focused on maritime, radical, military or colonial context; this works to enhance and enrich corpus of larger pirate studies with a linguistic theory analysis of a crucial element holding pirate crewmen together - Pirate English. The general expectation of this research is related to the idea that historically marginalised importance of Pirate English does not automatically discourage us from the exploration of this phenomenon from the linguistics point of views. Furthermore, Pirate English should not be overlooked by contemporary studies dealing with semiotic landscape, symbolism and communication, since it can provide us with much needed historical evidence about diverse maritime speech community and how their use of the language reflected the diversity of its members. Glossary of 17th/18th nautical terms will be provided. Pirate English and its analysis is based on contemporary sources dealing with "mediation of language" (Michael Stubbs), "semiotic landscape" (Kress & Leuwen), "communication and cognition" (Sperber & Wilson). Relevant scholars and publications related to the problematics of the Creole culture and linguistics such as John Holm or Peter Bekker will be discussed as well. Hence, the paper should produce a synthesis of contemporary linguistic concepts applied judiciously to historical records and explored through relevant socio-historical or cultural studies.

Drawing from a wide range of primary and secondary sources in English, French, Ottoman, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, German and Latin, this new work studies in 12 chapters and 600 pages the activities of Ottoman corsairs from the Adriatic to Iceland, from Baleares to Azores, dealing with several different aspects:

Cultural (religion, superstition, sexuality, daily life aboard corsair ships), economic (division of the booty, piracy’s function in an emerging capitalist world market), social (piracy and banditry) geographical (topography of the North African coasts), political (Maghreb’s relation with Istanbul) and military (ship types, fleet compositions, military strategies employed).

It has 16 colored, 34 black and white pictures, 20 maps and a 12 page glossary at the very end.

You can buy it online at: https://www.kitapyurdu.com/kitap/sultanin-korsanlari-amp-osmanli-akdenizinde-gaza-yagma-ve-esaret-15001700/479170.html&manufacturer_id=196016

“Osmanlı” adını verdiğimiz korsanlar hangi etnik kökenlerden gelmektedir? Bunlar fırsatçı yağmacılar mı, yoksa İslam’ın bayrağını taşıyan nusret-karin din savaşçıları mıdır? Mühtedi ve Hıristiyan denizciler ailelerini, vatanlarını ve reddettikleri inançlarını ne dereceye kadar arkalarında bırakabilmişlerdir? Gemilerde korsanlarımız ne yiyip içmekte, doğal ihtiyaçlarını nasıl karşılamakta ve denizin belirsizliklerine hangi ibadet ve ritüellerle karşı koymaktadır? Bir korsan akınında kullanılan askerî taktikler nelerdir? Korsan akınlarına uygun gemi tipleri nelerdir? Topoğrafik faktörler hangi limanları korsanlığa mahkûm etmiştir? Elde edilen ganimetin korsan limanlarına katkısı ve Avrupa ekonomisine zararı ne boyuttadır? Bu ganimet nasıl elden çıkarılmakta ve paylaşılmaktadır? İnsanları korsanlığa iten sosyo-ekonomik etkenler nelerdir? Korsanlarımızın yavaş yavaş gelişmeye başlayan uluslararası hukuktaki yeri nedir?
İşte daha önce sorulmayan tüm bu suallerin cevabı Osmanlıca, Fransızca, İtalyanca, İspanyolca, İngilizce, Portekizce, Katalanca, Latince ve Almanca kaynakları harmanlayan SULTANIN KORSANLARI: OSMANLI AKDENİZİ’NDE GAZÂ, YAĞMA VE ESARET, 1500-1700’de. Yıllar süren arşiv çalışmasıyla bir araya getirilmiş İzlanda’dan Adriyatik’e, Korsika’dan Azorlar’a uzanan tarihî örnekler; okuyucuyu din değiştiren fırsatçı mühtedilerin, firar etmek için binbir yolu deneyen Cervantes gibi esirlerin, aynı gemide yoldaşlık yapan Hıristiyan ve Müslümanların, sırtında kırbaç güneşin altında terleyen kürekçilerin, hakarete uğradığı, sevdiği kızı alamadığı ya da dolandırıldığı için intikam hırsıyla Mağrib’e gidip korsanları Hıristiyan kıyılarına getiren mürtedlerin, halkın veli mertebesine çıkardığı Hıristiyan doğumlu nev-müslimlerin dünyasına davet ediyor.
Doç. Dr. Emrah Safa Gürkan'ın tarihsel kategorileri altüst eden serhad kahramanlarını incelediği bu ikinci eseri, Osmanlı bahriye tarihinin en gizemli sayfalarını aralamakla kalmıyor; Osmanlı korsanlarını Akdeniz ve dünya tarihindeki iktisadî, siyasî ve teknolojik gelişmelerin ışığında analiz ediyor.

The present paper explores the shifting roles and understandings of the Singapore Straits from the latter Middle Ages until the opening decades of the eighteenth century. In pursuing this task, I will develop a set of basic questions that historicize and problematize the roles, functions and understandings of the Straits across the centuries, and also tease out historical and historiographical paradigms shaping and underpinning the understanding of the region’s past. In pursuing this programme I will make use of a broad range of sources including chronicles and histories, letters and treaties, navigational instructions and travel literature, as well as (European) cartography of the 16th to 18th centuries. In order to gain deeper appreciation of the multi-faceted roles and understandings of the Singapore Straits across the longue durée, I  not only adduce and evaluate materials of European colonial origin, but importantly also heed special attention to sources of Asian origin in general, and specifically to materials that have originally been written in Arabic, Malay, Chinese and have been made accessible to the wider reading public in various contemporary translations. The modes of enquiry and the insights brought to paper here differ both in terms of scope and objectives from my earlier findings expounded in The Singapore and Melaka Straits published in 2010.

The Preliminary Chapter will start with exposing and unveiling the existing challenges in the context of piracy and armed robbery at sea – which differences will also be covered after having exposed the main international instruments regulating piracy today. Such challenges pertain, inter alia, to the difficulty to apprehend and bring alleged pirates to trial, because of issues of jurisdiction as well as some triggered by the current definitions provided by international law. These challenges extend to the struggle of some States to prosecute and detain convicted pirates. These matters will be covered from an international point of view in Section 1 of the Preliminary Chapter, and in the specific example of the piracy phenomenon in Africa in Section 2 of the same Chapter. Section 3 of the Preliminary Chapter will in turn describe the unexpected consequences briefly cited in the previous paragraph, meaning, inter alia, an apparent displacement of the issue and the subsequent – too many perhaps – regional initiatives that were established to try and fight piracy. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 will then explore the possibilities of piracy being covered by international criminal law. Considering the challenges and, in many cases, subsequent impunity in the context of piracy, this thesis will try to answer the following question: could, or should piracy be covered by international criminal law in order to tackle the too many challenges surrounding this crime efficiently and on a long-term basis?

(…)

The second part of this thesis will therefore focus on whether piracy could be considered an international crime, notably to be covered by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute). Leaving aside the crimes of aggression and of genocide which specific features do not appear to coincide with the crime of piracy, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 will respectively assess whether piracy could be considered as a war crime or as a crime against humanity. Chapter 2 will first address the existence of a nexus between piracy and armed conflicts, then compare war crimes under the Rome Statute and what types of behaviours are covered under acts of piracy. It will then draw an analogy between child pirates and child soldiers, showing yet another similarity between piracy and war crimes based on the specific example of child pirates. Chapter 3 will first define crimes against humanity and will then compare them under the Rome Statute to acts of piracy. In this context, the requirements for crimes to amount to crimes against humanity will be exposed and compared to the specificities of the crime of piracy, in order to assess whether these chapeau requirements could be considered fulfilled or not. A comparison between certain crimes against humanity and some behaviours amounting to acts of piracy will also be performed in order to assess whether piracy itself could be considered a crime against humanity, and added as such in the Rome Statute.

This entry examines the most prominent and historically relevant occurrences of piracy in this particular time period, with a focus on the Americas. Several different types of pirate are discussed, and distinctions are drawn between the various pirating periods. A thorough overview of historical pirate social organization is presented, with a focus on pirate economy and the democratic structures in place aboard freebooting vessels, and the entry concludes with an assessment of how Colonial Era pirates were perceived and punished.

Barbaresques, boucaniers, flibustiers, guerres de course, abordages, razzias, butins, partages de prises, chasses au trésor, canonnades… Corsaires et pirates jalonnent de leurs exploits la vie maritime et peuplent notre imaginaire. Voici le premier dictionnaire historique sur ces aventuriers des mers : près de 600 entrées, une oeuvre monumentale, les meilleurs spécialistes pour faire revivre ces personnages hauts en couleur, des plus emblématiques comme Drake, Jean Bart, Surcouf, Duguay-Trouin, Dragut, Barberousse, aux oubliés de l'histoire ainsi qu'aux discrets mais indispensables armateurs. Un voyage dans le temps et à travers les océans où sont visités les principaux lieux associés à la course et à la piraterie, d'Alger aux Caraïbes, en passant par Boston,

Modern accounts of Atlantic piracy depict the Royal Navy as an effective police force that, in the course of a generation (1697-1730), transformed the Atlantic from a violent frontier into a locus of orderly commerce.  Scholars who see a sharp decline in piracy in the early-18th century argue that a governmental campaign of law enforcement and moral persuasion produced a revolutionary shift in public attitudes against piracy.  A close examination, however, reveals that piracy flourished in Atlantic waters well into the 19th century, with Britons persisting in seeing “armed commerce” as wholly conventional and legitimate despite imperial attempts to effect change.
As early-modern European states were centralizing their bureaucracies, establishing ideologies of state and law, modernizing their finances, and enacting bureaucratic and commercial monopolies as tools of state building, seas and oceans experienced a different course of development. As national mercantilist economies emerged in Europe, oceans formed trans-imperial trade zones, which operated as free-trade zones, given that legal trade restrictions were easily and routinely violated. The vastness of the ocean allowed British subjects on both sides of the Atlantic to retain an archaic and localist conception of society, state, and law, and to resist legal and bureaucratic structures put in place by landed governments to facilitate state building.
The distance between imperial law and commercial practice corresponded to the distance between the seats of government and the myriad locations of Atlantic commercial activities.  Governments’ efforts to bridge this ethical gap inevitably involved attempts to bridge the geographical gap as well, enhancing the presence and role of state agents in local jurisdictions and at sea.  In this sense, statutory law was a form of propaganda regarding the reach of state authority – a proclamation of national governments’ policy aspirations, as well as their presumptions to jurisdiction and administrative sway in peripheral communities.  Such propaganda remained unconvincing under governments that demonstrated to constituents that they did not have the capacity to enforce the law.

A la Découverte des Pirates

Numéro coordonné par Jean Soulat.

Les archives et les documents historiques nous éclairent assez précisément sur la piraterie et ses acteurs au cours des XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles, période moderne souvent décrite comme l’apogée de ce phénomène le long des côtes d’Amérique, aux Caraïbes ou dans l’océan Indien. Quand la plupart de ces flibustiers restent quasiment méconnus, certains deviennent de véritables personnages emblématiques et historiques ayant marqué leur époque comme Edward Teach plus connu sous le pseudonyme de Barbe Noire, Henry Morgan, William Kidd, Jack Rackham ou Bartholomew Roberts. Leurs prises, voyages, faits d’armes, alliances, morts sont relatés par les conteurs et écrivains contemporains mais aussi par les marins ou chirurgiens les ayant côtoyé. Cependant, les aspects de leur vie quotidienne à bord ou à terre, la connaissance détaillée de leur navire, de leur cargaison et trésor, des lieux de débarquement et cités portuaires restent peu évoqués dans la littérature. L’archéologie de la piraterie de cette période peut être un moyen de mieux appréhender le quotidien de ces gens de mer hors-la-loi. Totalement inédit en France et rassemblant une quinzaine de contributions nationales et internationales, ce numéro des Dossiers d’Archéologie présente les principaux sites archéologiques liés à la piraterie des XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles à travers les épaves de navire (Speaker 1702, Whydah Gally 1717 ou Queen Anne’s Revenge 1718) et les occupations terrestres (vestiges de camps et de défenses côtières) dans l’espace américano-caribéen et l’océan Indien. L’étude du mobilier archéologique découvert sur ces sites est également mit à l’honneur afin de montrer que la figure du pirate issue du folklore populaire du XIXe siècle est finalement assez loin de la réalité historique et archéologique.

Even though this paper arose when, to my surprise, I noticed that a younger generation of Russian historians suggested that the absence of Vikings in Russian historiography, pertaining to Scandinavian activity in the formation period of the Rus’ polity, could be the result of ideological repression from the Soviet system. The paper’s main purpose is by a detailed analysis of how the term ‘viking’ was actually used by contemporaries in the period c. 700-c. 1400: that is the period the term was in use in one or more Germanic languages mainly Anglo Saxon between c. 700-c. 1020 and in Norse between c. 1000-c. 1400. By 1400 the term was longer in general use in any language. At the time it broadly signified pirates without any ethnic connotations. Therefore we find it used to denote a broad spectrum of peoples known and described by Anglo Saxons and Scandinavians irrespective of religion, colour of skin and geographical origin.

The paper goes on to show how the term ‘viking’ survived more or less unnoticed among by a small group of internationally minded and interlinked antiquarians, who began to compile dictionaries of the Anglo-Saxon and Norse languages, publish and translate texts and even in 1775 publish a first treatise in Latin on the meaning of Norse ‘víkingr/víking’. It is quite clear from these texts that the term ‘viking’ was still not linked to Scandinavian ethnicity. It is also clear from the translations that the antiquarians did not expect their contemporary readers to know what ‘viking’ signified therefore it had to be explained or translated into words like searover, freebooter etc.

This all changed towards the end of the 18th century, when the nation-building ideology of Romanticism conquered the minds of the learned segments of European peoples, who went in search of their respective identities, their ‘Volksgeist’, in the often spare traces of ancient mythologies. This meant that especially Scandinavians found the origin of their ‘Volksgeist’ in Norse mythology, as it became known from the Eddas. In the process the term ‘viking’ was rediscovered and, now endowed with exclusive Scandinavian ethnicity, served as a nation-building marker for Scandinavians against the surrounding world. This happened during the first decades of the 19th century and since at least 1850 we seem to have lived in an echo chamber, where nobody, especially archaeologists and historians, doubts the Scandinavian ethnicity of Vikings. That did not change even when, in the second half of the 19th century, philologists began to publish the massive amount of Norse translation literature from the 12th to 14th century, where the term ‘viking’ is used about a wide range of other ethnicities but never Scandinavians. Had this literature been widely read, it would have shown that the link between the term ‘viking’ and Scandinavian ethnicity was false, and that is what it is: false!

Selected pages for those who wants to take a glimpse at my new book, Pirates for the Sultan. Slavery, Booty and Holy War in Ottoman Mediterranean, 1500-1700, Sultanın Korsanları: Osmanlı Akdenizi’nde Gazâ, Yağma ve Esaret, 1500-1700.

Drawing from a wide range of primary and secondary sources in English, French, Ottoman, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, German and Latin, this new work studies in 12 chapters and 600 pages the activities of Ottoman corsairs from the Adriatic to Iceland, from Baleares to Azores, dealing with several different aspects: Cultural (religion, superstition, sexuality, daily life aboard corsair ships), economic (division of the booty, piracy’s function in an emerging capitalist world market), social (piracy and banditry) geographical (topography of the North African coasts), political (Maghreb’s relation with Istanbul) and military (ship types, fleet compositions, military strategies employed). It has 16 colored, 34 black and white pictures, 20 maps and a 12 page glossary at the very end. You can buy it online at: https://www.kitapyurdu.com/kitap/sultanin-korsanlari-amp-osmanli-akdenizinde-gaza-yagma-ve-esaret-15001700/479170.html&manufacturer_id=196016

Between 1500 and 1860 piracy in South East Asia was a multinational enterprise, involving European, American, Chinese, Japanese, and indigenous sea raiders. Although Western pirates occasionally made their way into South East Asian waters, they never posed as much of a threat to the prosperity and stability of the area as the buccaneers had done in the Caribbean. Their presence virtually disappeared in the archipelagos by the early eighteenth century. Chinese and Japanese pirates also sporadically infiltrated the area during the entire period, and indigenous forms of piracy continued and expanded throughout the whole region during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Pirates are often described as existing on the margins of the world economy, emerging from the outskirts to disrupt otherwise free capitalist markets. With this narrative in mind, it is not surprising that the pirate remains a marginal figure within both the fictional stories and historical accounts of the emergence of capitalism. This article, however, asks: What do we learn about the capitalist world economy if we understand the pirate not as an outlaw but as a fellow capitalist? Weaving together stories of the golden age of piracy in the Atlantic world with contemporary piracy in the Gulf of Aden, I argue that pirate capitalism helps us to understand the capitalist world economy, not only demonstrating the violence and dispossession at the centre of capitalist accumulation but also making visible the fluid relationship between capital, sovereignty, violence, and freedom. Le capitalisme pirate, ou l'accumulation primitive du capital lui-même Résumé On décrit souvent les pirates comme existant en marge de l'économie mondiale, surgissant de ses abords pour venir perturber des marchés capitalistes par ailleurs libres. Cette représentation une fois posée, il n'est pas surprenant que le pirate demeure un personnage marginal des récits fictionnels ou historiques sur l'émergence du capitalisme. Cet article pose cependant la question suivante : Qu'apprenons-nous de l'économie mondiale capitaliste si nous voyons le pirate non pas comme un hors-la-loi, mais comme un capitaliste lui aussi ? Entremêlant récits de l'âge d'or de la piraterie dans le monde atlantique et de la piraterie contemporaine dans le golfe d'Aden, je défends la thèse que le capitalisme pirate facilite la compréhension de l'économie mondiale

Tackling maritime security is one of the major global challenges today.
Safeguarding international transport by sea; preventing accidents and disasters; fighting transnational organised crimes like piracy and the trafficking of narcotics and weapons; addressing fishery crimes and preventing other environmental crimes are all vital for international security and realising the prospects of the blue economy.
Maritime security is a global task. It requires effective maritime security governance at both national and regional levels, but also external capacity building to assist countries in developing their human and material capacities.
Significant investments have been made in maritime security and a rich experience base has been built over the years regarding how to organise maritime security governance and do capacity building work. This report consolidates this experience and identifies best practices to organise maritime security more efficiently and devise ways in which it can be effectively supported by donors. It provides guidelines for mastering maritime security.
Mastering maritime security requires reflexive capacity building. What reflexivity means in practice is demonstrated in this report by drawing on the experience of the Western Indian Ocean region.
The report is an important toolkit for all practitioners involved in maritime security. It also provides an essential guide for the planning, programming and implementation of capacity building for maritime security.