Combating Terrorism at Sea: the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation

This chapter presents Germany?s position with respect to the topic of maritime security. Without prejudice to the fact that the concept of security is continuously being extended these days, and by far exceeds purely military questions but also embraces economic, ecological and humanitarian aspects, it focuses on military facets of security concept. It then raises the awareness of threats encountered at sea and threats that emerge from sea and give an idea of what modern naval forces can contribute to countering these threats within the sometimes restricted boundaries of international and national maritime law. The chapter discusses the sea as a difficult-to-control supply line that can be used by terrorists and their operations. The sea not only serves as a resource and universal transport route for the world economy, trade, fishery and tourism, but also for terrorism, which has long discovered that sea route is an ideal logistic supply line. Keywords: Germany; maritime law; maritime security; military facets; national and international approaches; naval forces; terrorists; threats