page_title: Maritime security
section_title: History of Maritime Security
hierarchical_section_title: Maritime security / History of Maritime Security
caption_attribution_description: The USS Cole after al-Qaeda suicide attack
context_page_description: Maritime security is an umbrella term informed to classify issues in the maritime domain that are often related to national security, marine environment, economic development, and human security. This includes the worlds oceans but also regional seas, territorial waters, rivers and ports. The theoretical concept of maritime security has evolved from a narrow perspective of national naval power projection towards a Buzzword that incorporates many interconnected sub-fields. The definition of the term maritime security varies and while no internationally agreed definition exists, the term has often been used to describe both existing, and new regional and international challenges to the maritime domain. The buzzword character enables international actors to discuss these new challenges without the need to define every potentially contested aspect of it.
  Some of the practical issues clustered under the term of maritime security include crimes such as piracy, armed robbery at sea, trafficking of people and illicit goods, illegal fishing or marine pollution. Often inter-state rivalry and violence extremism is relevant.
context_section_description: Historically, the sea has been subject to different concepts of law and power. The term mare nostrum (our sea in Latin) has been coined by the Romans in 30 BC to 117 AD as a term to describe its control of the Mediterranean Sea. From this concept of the sealing of a sea, the legal concept of mare clausum (closed sea in legal Latin) was developed during the Age of discovery between the 15th and 17th century. The sea became a restricted space, organised between Portugal and Spain. Maritime activity was exclusively reserved for the enhancement of national security through naval military. In 1609, Hugo Grotius, a Dutch philosopher and jurist, published the book mare liberum where he introduced the concept of the free sea (mare liberum is translated to free sea in legal Latin). In his book, Grotius laid out the foundation of the freedom of navigation at sea. The sea was seen as international territory, where every nation was free to conduct trade.
  Grotius’ concept of the free sea was superseded by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This international agreement first came into effect in 1958 as the Convention on the High Seas (UNCLOS I). The most recent agreement is UNCLOS III, which is active since 1994. It now includes various zones and jurisdictions, including internal, territorial, and archipelagic waters. It further defines the exclusive sovereign waters of a state called contiguous zone, and the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) in which a state has the sole exploitation rights of resources like oil and fish. The latter can be extended by the continental shelf, a natural prolongation of the territory of the respective state. Maritime security has until then been mostly concerned with interstate naval conflicts and piracy at sea.
  As a concept and agenda maritime security has evolved since the late 1990s and early 2000s. In particular concerns over terrorist attacks on port facilities sparked new security interests in the maritime domain. Notable events influencing the maritime security paradigm are the USS Cole bombing in 2000 and the September 11 attacks in 2001. Several states and international organisations have since outlined maritime seceurity strategies. Many best practices and standards regarding physical maritime security like the ISPS Code from 2002 as a consequence of the attacks have been published by regulating authorities or the maritime industry. In the light of the perceived terrorist threat, the scope of the maritime security concept began to broaden from the narrow focus on interstate military confrontation to include other issues. (See also critical security studies)
  It is in particular the surge of piracy during the early 2000s in Southeast Asia, off the coast of Somalia and in West Africa which has triggered recognition for the detrimental effects of maritime insecurities. As a result of the economic costs for world trade and the physical threats to seafarers, maritime security gained a significant increase of attention by the shipping industry, insurers and policy makers around the world. Piracy was also the starting point of many International Relations scholars for approaching maritime security as a concept. In the wake of the Mumbai Terrorist attack in November 2008, an Indian scholar even lamented the serious lack of maritime vision in his government's policies to preserve India's expanding interests, thereby coining the catch-phrase "sea-blindness". 
  One effect of piracy has been the development of regional cooperation initiatives. In Southeast Asia for example, the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCaap) has been initiated in 2004 and includes now an Information Sharing Centre (ISC). Besides Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) more topics began to become subject of these cooperation initiatives. The International Maritime Organization Djibouti Code of Conduct (DCoC), adopted in 2009, was originally an agreement on cooperation between East African and Southwest Asian states to counter piracy. Since its revision and t
caption: The warship USS Cole after an attack in October 2000 while she was being refueled in Aden harbour, Yemen
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