Modern Maritime Piracy – Influential Factors and a Heuristic Framework to Identify Potential Future Piracy Hotspots

Piracy poses multidimensional threats not only to the shipping industry but also to seaborne trade and human lives. Indonesia and the Strait of Malacca in Southeast Asia, a region in which most pirate attacks have been reported to have taken place in the last ten years, is considered to the first hotspot of modern maritime piracy. Recently, a new hotspot of piracy has emerged: the waters off Somalia and the Gulf of Aden. This thesis reveals that although piracy off the coast of Somalia differs distinctly in occurrence and characteristics from the attacks now taking place in Indonesia, a comparison of the factors and their respective indicators that seem to have enhanced piracy‘s prevalence in both regions shows that they match largely. This result validates the heuristic framework developed in this thesis; a tool to determine potential future piracy hotspots. In using that tool, the framework was applied to Nigeria to establish whether this area is prone to further developments of modern maritime piracy. Nigeria is already subject to piracy attacks, but the number of attacks in its waters so far is well below Somalia’s. Nevertheless, the analysis clearly reveals that although Nigeria is not yet considered a piracy hotspot, it is on the verge of becoming one; especially if more of the framework‘s factors and indicators are fulfilled. Following relationship table between thesis objectives and thesis structure guides the reader and indicates which sections are of particular importance for the research questions and which sections rather provide additional background information.