Abstract
This book documents the magnitude of this “unjust side of globalization.” It discusses how globalization victimizes ordinary people and how recent improvements in the protection of victims of crime are compromized by the same processes. On the positive side globalization may create a new sensitivity to victimhood in far away corners. This chapter provides an introduction to the main themes and concepts used in this book.
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Notes
- 1.
United Nations (2004). A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, Report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change, p. 15, Available through http://www.un.org/secureworld/report.pdf.
- 2.
It goes beyond the scope of this chapter to synthesize the many discussions relating to this concept. For critiques on the usefulness of the concept in providing a basis for substantive change of the system of international security, we refer to a recent contribution by Ryerson Christie (2010).
- 3.
Cited in: Hall, M. (2009). Victims of Crime; Policy and Practice in Criminal Justice, Cullompton, Willan Publishing.
- 4.
Beitz, C.R. (2005). Cosmopolitanism and Global Justice, The Journal of Ethics, 9, 11–27, notes as follows: ‘First, one should not think of globalization as a development peculiar to the late-twentieth century. However it is measured – whether by the volume of trade, capital flows and labor migration, by the integration of goods and capital markets, or by the sensitivity of domestic life to economic transactions elsewhere – economic globalization dates at least from the nineteenth century.’ See further O’Rourke, K.H. & Williamson, J.G. (1999). Globalization and History: The Evolution Of A Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy, Cambridge, MIT Press.
- 5.
See also: Aas, K.F. (2007). Globalization and Crime, London, SAGE.
- 6.
Cited in Siegel, D. & Nelen, H. (2008) (eds.). Organized Crime: Culture, Markets and Policies, New York, NY, Springer.
- 7.
Passas, N. (2000), ‘Global Anomie, Dysnomie, and Economic Crime: Hidden Consequences of Neo-liberalism and Globalization in Russia and the World’, Social Justice, 27, 2, 16–43.
- 8.
Bauman, Z. (1998). Globalization: The Human Consequences, Cambridge, Polity Press. For critique on the ‘withering of the state’ thesis, see in Aas, K.F. (2007). Globalization and Crime, Sage Publications, p. 143 ff.
- 9.
Hertz, N. (2001). The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy, London, Arrow Books.
- 10.
Beck, U. (2002). Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, London, Sage.
- 11.
Young, J. (1999). The Exclusive Society, London, Sage.
- 12.
Swaan, A. de (1989). In Care of the State; Health Care, Education and Welfare in Europe and the USA in the Modern Era, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
- 13.
Pratt, J., Brown, D., Brwon, M., Hallsworth, S., & Morisson, W. (eds.), (2005). The New Punitiveness: Trends, Theories, Perspectives, Cullompton, Willan Publishers.
- 14.
For the purpose of this book, victims are defined as those who have been harmed by acts defined as criminal violations of national or international law.
- 15.
Gooday, J. (2008). Human Trafficking; Sketchy Data and Policy Responses, Criminology and Criminal Justice, 8, 4, 421–2.
- 16.
Findlay (2008).
- 17.
For thorough discussions on the concept of global justice, see Brooks, T. (ed.) (2008). The Global Justice Reader, Oxford, Blackwell Publishing.
- 18.
It is also an improvement compared to the limited victims’ rights provisions in the Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, see further Chapter 12.
- 19.
See http://ibcr.org/eng/.
- 20.
Boyle, A. & Chinkin, C. (2007). The Making of International Law, Oxford, Oxford Press, and Van Genugten, W.J.M., Van Gestel, R., Groenhuijsen, M.S., & Letschert, R.M. (2007). Loopholes, Risks and Ambivalences in International Lawmaking; The Case of a Framework Convention on Victims’ Rights, Netherlands Yearbook of International Law, vol. XXXVII, pp. 109–154.
- 21.
Findlay, M. (2008). Governing Through Globalized Crime, Futures for International Criminal Justice, Cullompton, Devon, Willan Publishing, p. 238: “International Criminal Justice will have a crucial role to play in the decades to come, formulating and materializing victim communities as a force in justice regulation. The formal institutions of ICJ will come to prosecute on behalf of and in protection of humanity. As such, victim constituencies will exceed the authorising agencies of the ICC as essential legitimators, beyond the victors who give perspective to the war crimes tribunals […]”.
- 22.
See Transparency International Annual Report, 2007, http://www.transparency.org/. Of the major exporting countries Canada, Japan and the UK are singled out as countries with no or very few prosecutions. See also TI report: Emerging economic giants show high levels of corporate bribery overseas; construction, real estate, oil and gas sectors most prone to corruption, London/Berlin, 08 December, 2008.
- 23.
Local communities in oil-rich Angola, for example, are among the poorest in the world and corruption by state officials has been called the country’s only functioning institution. Yet not a single case of grand corruption has ever been brought before a court in Angola since independence. To our knowledge no cases have ever been tried against foreign international companies criminally operating in Angola either. The Angolese victim communities are without any legal recourse against a government looting a potentially affluent country in cahoots with international corporations.
- 24.
An important argument against the creating of procedural rights for victims in criminal procedure has always been that private citizens have the option to sue their offenders for damages in a civil court. Empirical studies have falsified the notion that crime victims can effectively obtain compensation from the offenders through civil proceedings. The access to courts in such cases is largely theoretical. Victims stand much better chances to receive (partial) compensation in the context of a criminal trial. The option of seeking justice through litigation at civil law courts seems even more problematic for victims of global crimes, Groenhuijsen, M.S. & Van Dijk, J. (1993). ‘Schadevergoedingsmaatregel en Voeging: De civielrechtelijke invalshoek’, Nederlands Juristenblad, 68, 5, pp. 163–167.
- 25.
Van Dijk, J.J.M. & Wemmers, J. (2010). ‘International Victimology; Services and Rights for Victims of Domestic and International Crimes’, in: Mangai, & Natarajan (eds.), Introduction to International Criminal Justice, Boston, McGraw Hill.
References
Bauman, Z. (1998). Globalization: The Human Consequences, Cambridge, Polity Press.
Beck, U. (2002). Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, London, Sage.
Beitz, C.R. (2005). Cosmopolitanism and Global Justice, The Journal of Ethics, 9.
Boyle, A. & Chinkin, C. (2007). The Making of International Law, Oxford, Oxford Press.
Findlay, M. (2008). Governing through Globalized Crime, Futures for International Criminal Justice, Cullompton, Devon, Willan Publishing.
Hall, M. (2009). Victims of Crime Policy and Practice in Criminal Justice, Cullompton, Willan.
Hertz, N. (2001). The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy, London, Arrow Books.
Passas, N. (2000). ‘Global Anomie, Dysnomie, and Economic Crime: Hidden Consequences of Neo-liberalism and Globalization in Russia and the World’, Social Justice, 27, 2.
Siegel, D. & Nelen, H. (eds.) (2008). Organized Crime: Culture, Markets and Policies, Springer, New York, NY.
Swaan, A. de (1989). In Care of the State; Health Care,Education and Welfare in Europe and the USA in the Modern Era, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
United Nations (2004). Report of the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change.
Young, J. (1999). The Exclusive Society, London, Sage.
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Letschert, R., van Dijk, J. (2011). New Faces of Victimhood: Reflections on the Unjust Sides of Globalization. In: Letschert, R., van Dijk, J. (eds) The New Faces of Victimhood. Studies in Global Justice, vol 8. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9020-1_1
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