This chapter begins with the history of the international recognition of terrorism as a crime, including through the adoption of global and regional counter-terrorism treaties, and United Nations (UN) Security Council resolutions. The chapter then turns to a discussion of the challenges associated with defining terrorism, including its material and mental elements, and with national prosecutions. The chapter also explores terrorism as a war crime, a crime against humanity, and a crime under customary international law. The chapter’s consideration of torture begins with the definition found in the UN Convention Against Torture, and considers the obligation to prosecute or extradite (aut dedere aut judicare) under that treaty. It also discusses torture as an international crime under the ICC Statute and other statutes of international criminal tribunals. The chapter ends with an examination of ecocide as an emerging crime.

Whether tacked onto a bumper sticker, T-shirt, comic strip, or witty cartoon, humor offers laconic, entertaining, and simple snapshots of the issues and problems that plague societies. The text of the cartoon in the epigraph presents a humorous take on the main topic of the book, distilling a larger conversation on the limits of justice mechanisms and crimes of government officials into a monochromatic depiction of a serene chat between a father and his son. Contemplating the prospects of different career paths, the boy announces his budding interest in organized crime to his dad. Straight-faced and without missing a beat, his father responds, “Government or private sector?,” which draws on a long-standing perception that associates the incriminating behavior of government officials and private sector executives with unchecked impunity. A spin-off of the original cartoon emphasizes the latter, with the father recommending, “I personally would suggest government for you, my son. They never go to jail.”

European Criminal Law has developed into a complex, jagged subject matter, which at the same time has become increasingly important for everyday criminal law practice. On the one hand, this work aims to do comprehensive justice to the complexity of the matter without sacrificing readability. In order to achieve this, the book’s structure enables legal scholars and experienced practitioners to access the information relevant to them in a targeted manner and, at the same time, enables less-oriented readers to gain access to European Criminal Law. Thus, the volume both answers basic questions and offers discussion in more specialised areas. Written by experts in the field, the book offers discussions that are both of the highest academic standards and accessibly readable.

Scandinavian countries have gone from mostly importing crime fiction to being, in the twenty-first century, the genre’s lead exporters. The chapter considers this transnationalization from three perspectives, showing how Scandinavian crime writing adapts international genres to local concerns, how notable examples of the genre engage with the wider world, and how novels and TV series circulate within transnational networks. It argues that Scandinavian crime fiction is bound up with transnational and transmedial networks of influence, appropriation and innovation. Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s procedurals reflect popular geopolitics while their proto-typical Scandinavian cop longs for a Swedish welfare utopia. Cross-border crimes in works by Henning Mankell, Anne Holt and Peter Høeg critique global structures of social and racial inequality and challenge the demarcation between the local and the global. More recent global bestsellers by Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbø employ hybrid genres to tell stories of a globalizing world where the relationship between the welfare state and global neoliberalism, and between the bounded nation and an increasingly transnational world are key ingredients.

This chapter examines links between European peaceful borders and the occurrence and proliferation of illicit transnational flows. We refer to the European “internal” borders since the implementation of the Schengen Agreement in 1995, the Southeastern European borders (regarding the Western Balkans/former Yugoslavia) since the end of the Bosnian War in 1995, and the borders between the EU and its Western Balkan neighbors. We assess the softening and the complete opening of the internal borders among the twenty-six Schengen countries in contrast to external border control, as related to the occurrence and proliferation of illicit transnational flows. The two major European concerns in the last two decades are illegal migration and transnational crime, including drug trafficking, human trafficking and smuggling, arms trafficking, and terrorism. Harmonization of internal border controls has abolished the logic of jurisdictional arbitrage. Moreover, peaceful borders that are “hard” between the EU and its Southern and Eastern neighbors remain more controlled, though that it is not necessarily an obstacle for the occurrence of illicit transnational flows.

In this chapter, we examine what we call the triangle of peace in the Middle East, with reference to the peaceful international borders established upon the completion of peace treaties between Egypt and Israel on March 26, 1979, and between Israel and Jordan on October 26, 1994. In both cases, we show that international peace, especially in the case of Israel-Egypt, has been a permissive condition for the occurrence and proliferation of illicit transnational flows, including transnational crime and terrorism.Yet, we explain the variance between the two cases with reference to the three variables assessed throughout the book: the degree of physical and institutional openness of the peaceful borders; the degree of governance and institutional strength of the bordering states; and the prevalent socioeconomic conditions of the neighboring states. The Egyptian-Israeli case has registered significant instances of transnational crime and terrorism, whereas the Israeli-Jordanian dyad is almost a non-case, except for drugs trafficking. Their variance is explained in geopolitical terms, governance, the presence or absence of buffer zones, and the dominance of the security discourse.

In this introductory chapter, we provide an initial examination of the linkages between peaceful borders and the occurrence and proliferation of illicit transnational flows. We refer to several empirical examples, including the cases of the Northern Triangle in Central America, the Tri-Border Area of the Southern Cone of South America, the Colombian borders, and the Schengen open regime in Europe. In addition, we refer to the existing scholarship by clarifying several key concepts, stemming from five different bodies of literature: international peace, globalization, international borders, governance and “areas of limited statehood,” and the phenomena of transnational criminal organizations and terrorism.

In this chapter, we examine the links between peaceful borders among the Southeast Asian countries and the occurrence and proliferation of illicit transnational flows, especially with regard to drug trafficking, human trafficking and smuggling, and arms trafficking. Southeast Asia is the most stable and peaceful among the Asian regions. Regional peace in the Southeast Asian region, especially after 1991, has contributed to its phenomenal economic growth and development, which, in turn, has led to higher levels of integration. At the same time, expanding economic and infrastructure links around region have also facilitated the occurrence of illicit transnational flows, including transnational organized crime and terrorism. The issue of transnational crime addresses the question of national sovereignty. On the one hand, illicit transnational flows pose a threat to the national sovereignty and the territorial integrity of independent states.On the other hand, effective cooperation in combating transnational crime and terrorism requires a political decision by national governments to surrender some parts and pieces of their sovereignty. In this sense, the Southeast Asian countries have traditionally been strong defenders of the sanctity of national sovereignty and nonintervention.

In this chapter, we assess the links between the peaceful borders of the Southern African countries and the occurrence and proliferation of illicit transnational flows. Peace broke out in Southern Africa following the end of the regional and civil wars involving South Africa and its neighbors, and especially the domestic peaceful change that took place in South Africa in 1994, ending the apartheid regime and leading to the normalization of relations between South Africa and its neighbors. The threat of interstate warfare and violence in the SADC region has receded in the last twenty years, as the region has experienced a significant transition from war to stable peace. At the same time, in the aftermath of peace and integration, open and porous peaceful borders among the Southern African countries have enabled the occurrence and proliferation of both licit and illicit flows.

The studies in this book examine the processes through which transnational criminal justice norms are being formed and institutionalized, migrate across jurisdictions, and shape the practices and attitudes of national and local actors. They assess the driving forces behind the emergence of new mechanisms of transnational legal ordering in diverse areas of criminal justice, analyze their limits and their effects, and evaluate their implications for our understanding of the nature of criminal law as a social and political institution. This introductory chapter sets the analytic framework for these inquiries. Drawing on the book’s case studies, we explore a number of theses for explaining why illicit activities and law enforcement practices become objects of transnational regulation. We consider how competition among and resistance within transnational legal orders shape and constrain their formation, institutionalization, and consequences. Finally, we highlight the book’s contribution to the broader project of developing a socio-legal theory of transnational legal ordering and to scholarly debates regarding the impact of globalization on criminal justice policies.