Governing Through Globalised Crime

British Journal of Politics & International …, 2002

AQ: Australian Quarterly, 1999

Global Crime (Taylor & Francis)

This paper proposes that application of the human security framework enables us to see a negative impact of globalisation on the transnational organised crime and terrorism nexus. The main argument is that state-building and globalisation create conditions allowing for international organised crime and terrorism to cooperate in international and failed-state spheres. Namely, while state-building and traditional security measures suppress terrorist means to operate in strong states, globalisation offers international organised crime lucrative opportunities to escape strong states and instead operate in the non-state sphere (international and failed state). This process makes state-centric traditional methods of combating terrorism and crime, such as the war on terror, largely ignorant of how international organised crime and terrorism operate in non-state sphere. To address security challenges posed by transnational terrorism and crime in the non-state sphere, a human security framework offers an enhanced understanding of the problem.

Attempts to govern crime at the global level date back to late 19th century, and since the founding of the United Nations and other international organizations with mandates concerning responses to various forms of illicit cross-border conduct, global crime governance has been part and parcel of domestic politics and foreign policy. Throughout this time, crime governance has been deeply entwined with the uneven progresses of economic development, securitization and digitization, giving rise to patchy response mechanisms, often questioning the crime control capacity of the international community. Anja P. Jakobi's accessible and highly informative book on global crime and its governance dives deep into the various dimensions of transnational organized crime and its multiple manifestations around the world, covering such crimes as trafficking in drugs and persons, environmental crime and financial crimes, and cybercrime, among other cross-border economic crimes.

Routledge eBooks, 2016

Policy brief, 2018

The Research Paper opens with a conceptual discussion about definitions of 'organised crime/groups' (OCGs) and 'terrorism/terrorist groups (TGs)'. It distinguishes between four types/levels of 'links' between OCGs and TGs and identifies two special types of violent hybrid organisations. It first summarises the main findings of a background report on the links between transnational organised crime groups and international terrorist groups, prepared by the author for the UN Crime Commission in the mid-1990s. After presenting key aspects of transnational OCGs and TGs in the 1990s, and comparing some of the features noted then to the situation today, the paper elaborates key differences and similarities between these two types of organisations. In the mid-1990s, transnational organised crime groups and terrorist organisations were decidedly distinct, linked in some ways but separated in more important other ways. Today the situations has evolved as there are new features not prominent in 1996. Looking at the present situation, the paper notes that recruiters of OCGs and TGs in Western diasporas increasingly fish in the same pool of mainly ethnic youth gangs and petty criminals. Another novelty is the role of prisons where convicted terrorists have successfully radicalised common petty criminals and members of OCGs. The report also draws attention to the situation in Sub-Saharan Africa where some smuggling and trafficking networks and jihadist networks have assumed a hybrid character. The criminalisation of some states and the involvement of government officials in organised crime or in supporting terrorism is also addressed. Concluding, the Research Paper notes an increase in both organised crime and terrorism since the mid-1990s but sees the main cause for this not so much in greater and deeper links between terrorist and organised crime groups but in the development of in-house capabilities of organised crime methods by TGs and terrorist tactics by OCGs and-more importantly-in changes in their operational environments due to, inter alia, globalisation and the role of the Internet. While the links between TGs and OCGs are a matter of serious concern for the international community, the far greater problem is that increasingly past and present political power holders are involved as third parties, whereby state facilities (e.g. diplomatic channels) are used as vehicles and cover for violent and predatory crimes across international borders. The paper also features an extensive, up-to-date bibliography on the nexus between international terrorism and transnational organised crime. Definitions of Organised Crime/Groups and Terrorism/Terrorist Groups One thing that has changed-at least in part-during the last two decades is in the field of definitions. Before the year 2000, there was no internationally accepted (i.e. approved by the UN General Assembly) legal definition of 'organised crime' or '(international) terrorism'. Now there is at least a UN draft definition of terrorism and a finalised one for 'organised criminal groups' in the Palermo Convention of 2000.

European Review of Organised Crime (EROC), 2021

Attempts to govern crime at the global level date back to late 19th century, and since the founding of the United Nations and other international organizations with mandates concerning responses to various forms of illicit cross-border conduct, global crime governance has been part and parcel of domestic politics and foreign policy. Throughout this time, crime governance has been deeply entwined with the uneven progresses of economic development, securitization and digitization, giving rise to patchy response mechanisms, often questioning the crime control capacity of the international community.

In the research analysis of ‘Methods not Motives’ by Shelley and Picarelli, I set out to explore some of the core themes around criminology and terrorism as raised by the article. With consideration to the context in which these themes were presented, I seek to explore the (i) Defining and labelling of terrorism and terrorist groups post 9/11 (ii) comparisons between organized crime and terrorism (iii) impacts and implications of policing terrorism as a global/local crime. The stated aim of the ‘Methods and Motives’ research piece was to explore the relationships between transnational organized crime and corruption and their intersections. The researchers arrived at the conclusion that although organized criminal organizations and terrorist groups often adopt similar methods, they are inherently striving for divergent ends. Shelley and Picarelli assert that the wider application of the study is to provide a basis for further research into relational consequences for policymakers and practitioners from both the US and the larger global community, to substantiate the need for scholarly research on this relationship between organized crime groups and terrorist organizations in an effort to develop an effective counter terrorism strategy.

This paper focuses on globalisation and crime. The paper explains the criminogenic effects of globalisation outlining those crimes where people are forced to "migrate into illegality" due to economic reasons (impoverishment and marginalisation), political conflicts and socio-cultural change.

Revista Brasileira de Direito

Inspired by the theme and written for the Seminario Internacional de Direcito, Democracia & Sustentabilidade, 13-14 de agosto de 2015, IMED, Passo Fundo, this article examines the effects of the crimes of the powerful as represented by multinational corporations, state organizations, and non-state actors. The essay sets out to exhaustively define the crimes of the powerful while providing an overview of the globalization of crime and victimization. Additionally, as a matter of discussing the relations of the globalization of crime, capital, and social control, I summarize the primary lessons learned from The Routledge International Handbook of the Crimes of the Powerful (2015) that I was the Editor for and contributor to. Finally, I conclude by responding to the dialectical question of whether the current economic recessions, contractions, and unchecked expansion of financial and corporate wealth are sustainable and represent a prototype of things to come or are not sustainable and represent the need for the development of alternative archetypes of change and sustainability?