Piracy

Piracy offers a clear and authoritative account of the contemporary law of piracy, challenging the widespread assumption that its significance lies in its historical origins. Instead, it demonstrates how piracy law functions as a practical and adaptable legal framework that enables states to cooperate in suppressing maritime violence beyond territorial jurisdiction without requiring uniform responses or supranational institutions.Examining the historical development of piracy law alongside its modern treaty foundations, the book explains how the regime balances legal certainty with operational flexibility. It explores the core elements of the offence, questions of jurisdiction, and enforcement powers, while showing how states have employed diverse approaches, including naval operations, information-sharing, regional prosecutions, and capacity-building initiatives. By focusing on the law as it exists today, the book provides a rigorous analysis of what piracy law can achieve, why it has remained resilient across different political and institutional contexts, and the limits of its application in addressing contemporary maritime challenges.

Professor Douglas Guilfoyle is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow (2022-2026) at UNSW Canberra. His principal areas of research are the international law of the sea, and international and transnational criminal law. His fields of specialism include maritime law-enforcement, international courts and tribunals, and international legal history. He was previously a Professor of Law at Monash University, Reader in Law at University College London, and has worked as a judicial associate in the Australian Federal Court system and in commercial litigation. He was a Gates Cambridge Trust scholar and Chevening scholar during his graduate study at the University of Cambridge.Tamsin Phillipa Paige is an Associate Professor with Deakin Law School. Her work is interdisciplinary in nature, using qualitative sociological methods to analyse international law (with a focus on application of law and the impact it has on society). She also does law and literature research using popular fiction to understand social perceptions of the law. Her work has examined (among other things) Somali piracy, UN Security Council decision making, the impact of international law on queer lives, and conflict based sexual violence. Previously she was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at UNSW Canberra and during her graduate studies she was an Endeavour Scholar. In a former life, she was a French trained, fine dining pâtissière.