Legal Responses To Transnational And International Crimes

This book critically reflects on the relationship between ‘core crimes’ which make up the subject matter jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (such as war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression) and transnational crimes. The contributions in the book address the features of several transnational crimes and generally acknowledge that the boundaries between core crimes and transnational crimes are blurring. One of the major questions is whether, in view of this gradual merger of the categories, the distinction in legal regime is still warranted. Should prosecution and trial of transnational crimes be transferred from national to international jurisdictions?

"Casebook on international and transnational criminal law"--

This edited collection provides an in-depth account of the history of key developments in transnational criminal law. While the history of international criminal law is now a much written about topic, the origins of most modern transnational criminal laws are not well understood. Histories of Transnational Criminal Law provides for the first time a set of legal histories of state efforts to combat and cooperate against transnational crime. With contributions from a group of word-leading experts, this edited volume traverses a range of topics, beginning with the normative, intellectual, and institutional histories of transnational criminal law. It then moves to the histories of specific transnational crimes ranging across eras from piracy to cybercrime, and finishes by examining jurisdiction, modes of liability, different forms of procedural cooperation, and the predicament of the individual in transnational criminal law. The book highlights specific issues and how they have been resolved, in the loose assemblage of norms, institutions, and practices that constitutes transnational criminal law.

Parties negotiating the end of authoritarian regimes or armed conflicts are almost inevitably left in a situation of legal uncertainty. Despite their overlapping scope of application, the differences between the approaches of International Criminal Law (ICL) and Transitional Justice (TJ) are so profound that, unless dogmatisms are left aside and a process of dialogue is entered into, it will not be possible to harmonize the current legal regime of international crimes with the need to articulate transitional processes that are capable of effectively overcoming authoritarian regimes and armed conflicts. The serious material limitations shown by national, international and hybrid ICL enforcement mechanisms should be acknowledged and the goals pursued by ICL should be redefined accordingly. A minimum level of consensus on the scope of application, goals and elements of TJ should also be reached. Situations of systematic or large scale violence against the civilian population by transnational criminal organizations increase the challenge.

Philip Jessup coined the term "transnational law" in his Storrs Lecture on Jurisprudence delivered in 1956 to describe law that regulates activities or actions that transcend national borders. The term redefined the development and practice of the law, and became a distinct field of study. In 2001, Neil Boister applied Jessup’s concept to the field of criminal law and identified the emergence of transnational criminal law in a formative article published in the European Journal of International Law. Inspired by Boister’s work, the editors of the journal Transnational Legal Theory sought contributions from leading academics and practitioners for a symposium issue on transnational criminal law. In their papers, the authors built upon and developed novel approaches to legal issues arising in an increasingly globalized world, where both crimes and the regulation of crimes transcend borders. The publication of this book marks the sixtieth anniversary of Jessup’s seminal lecture and exemplifies the significant impact that Jessup, and later Boister, have had on legal scholarship and practice in the area of criminal law. We are honoured to publish the symposium as a monograph and to contribute to this rapidly evolving field. This book was previously published as a special issue of Transnational Legal Theory.

National borders are permeable to all types of illicit action and contraband goods, whether it is trafficking humans, body parts, digital information, drugs, weapons, or money. Whilst criminals exist in a borderless world where territorial boundaries allow them to manipulate different markets in illicit goods, the authorities who pursue them can remain constrained inside their own jurisdictions. In a new edition of his ground-breaking work, Boister examines how states must cooperate to tackle some of the greatest security threats in this century so far, analyses to what extent vested interests have determined the course of global policy and law enforcement, and illustrates how responding to transnational crime itself becomes a form of international relations which reorders global political power and becomes, at least in part, an end in itself. Arguing that transnational criminal law is currently geared towards suppressing criminal activity, but is not as committed to ensuring justice, Boister suggests that it might be more strongly influenced by individual moral panics and a desire for criminal retribution than an interest in ensuring a proportional response to offences, protection of human rights, and the preservation of the rule of law.

International crime and justice is an emerging field that covers international and transnational crimes that have not been the focus of mainstream criminology or criminal justice. This book examines the field from a global perspective. It provides an introduction to the nature of international and transnational crimes and the theoretical perspectives that assist in understanding the relationship between social change and the waxing and waning of the crime opportunities resulting from globalization, migration, and culture conflicts. Written by a team of world experts, it examines the central role of victim rights in the development of legal frameworks for the prevention and control of transnational and international crimes. It also discusses the challenges to delivering justice and obtaining international cooperation in efforts to deter, detect, and respond to these crimes.