New Approaches to Transnational and International Criminal Law and Justice

The workshop aims to study the interrelationship between international, transnational and domestic criminal law and justice.

The Centre for Criminal Justice Studies (CCJS) at the University of Leeds will hold a 2 day workshop entitled ‘New Approaches to Transnational and International Criminal Law and Justice’. While it is an informal event with the aim of drawing up a research agenda, anyone interested is very welcome to attend and participate.

The workshop aims to study the interrelationship between international, transnational and domestic criminal law and justice.

Transnational and international criminal justice are two branches of scholarship that have developed along separate trajectories without much interaction. This is surprising and unfortunate since they have a lot in common. Like international crimes (genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity), transnational crimes (terrorism, organized crime, drug-trafficking and cyber-crime) can be committed under the guise of armed conflict. Indeed, almost every armed conflict or situation that is under investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC), is essentially about a scramble for natural resources and comes with organized criminality and business interference from the ‘outside’ (Western powers, China).

Recently, scholars in criminal justice and criminology have directed their attention to studying international crime and applying criminological theories to international crime. This is an exciting development and requires addressing the question about the nature of international and transnational crime: to what extent do these crimes differ, or not, from domestic, ‘garden-variety’ crimes? And if they do differ, how does that impact prevention and punishment strategies?