CONTENTS: Foreword Preface The Origins The Evolution of the Concept of Piracy in England The United States of America and the Law of Piracy British Practice in the Nineteenth Century "Piracy" in the Twentieth Century Appendices Abbreviations Bibliography Index Index of Cases Professor Alfred P. Rubin of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University, the author of this volume, has contributed a work of exceptional scholarship that will long be regarded as an authoritative reference material not only with respect to the law of piracy, but to the whole of international law....

The distinguished international lawyer Alfred Rubin argues powerfully that disagreements that have existed for thousands of years among lawyers, ethicists, and political scientists are unlikely to be resolved soon. Current attempts to make "war crimes" or "terrorism" criminal under international law seem doomed to fail for the same reasons that attempts failed in the early nineteenth century to make piracy, war crimes, and the international traffic in slaves criminal under the law of nations.