The International Criminal Court and United States opposition

While the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been touted as the most fundamental development in international society to date, there has been relatively little criminological research examining the potential influence of the ICC. Additionally, criminologists have neglected the United States' responses to the ICC. Our purpose is to fill that gap by examining the United States' role in the development of, and subsequent reactions to, the ICC. Moreover, we draw upon Chambliss' Structural Contradictions Model to explicate processes within the development of International Law, thereby expanding its utility. We begin with a brief discussion of the most contentious elements of the ICC for the United States, sovereignty and jurisdiction, followed by a review of the theoretical model utilized in our analysis. We then discuss the role of the United States in the development of the ICC followed by the proceeding actions taken against the Court. We suggest how US withdrawal and legislative undermining of the ICC not only reflects the US ambiguous relationship with international law but also reveals some of the inherent limitations placed on the ICC as an international institution of formal social control. We conclude with a criminological analysis of the Court's potential based on the existing Rome Statute and the recent efforts of the U.S. to thwart its efficacy.Dawn L Rothe is an Assistant Professor of Criminology at the University of Northern Iowa. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from Western Michigan University. Her main research interests focus on White-Collar-Crime (state and transnational crimes), international law and institutions of social control, and criminological theory. Her recent work has appeared in Critical Criminology and Social Justice, and is the author of the forthcoming book Symbolic Gestures and the Generation of Social Control: the International Criminal Court published by Lexington.Christopher W. Mullins is an Assistant Professor of Criminology in the department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology at the University of Northern Iowa. His research focuses on violence, especially interconnections between street culture, gender and street violence, as well as violence by corporations and nation-states. His work has appeared in Criminology, Critical Criminology, and Criminal Justice Review and is the author of two forthcoming books and several book chapters.     

Enemies Everywhere: Terrorism, Moral Panic, and US Civil Society

Since the attacks of September 11th, 2001, terrorism has experienced a prominence in discourse across the U.S. The representations of terrorists and terrorism by the news media and politi have contributed to the edifice of terrorism as a moral panic. This treatise examines the social effects that have or may occur due to the social construction of a moral panic of terrorism. The thematic frame is situated within Cohens stages of a moral panic. We offer an analysis of the medias depiction and coverage of acts of terrorism, and legislative, political and legal responses in the form of social and cultural changes occurring from the creation of a moral panic. In addition, we offer an analysis of the states vested interest in the social construction of this panic, leading to increased levels of fear, targeted at the general publics consciousness. This article concludes that the presentation of terrorism and terrorists by the media and politi have contributed to unnecessary levels of panic and fear, misguided public consciousness, and the development of legislation creating negative social ramifications yet be seen.     

The Illusion of Resistance: Commodification and Reification of Neoliberalism and the State

While protests and acts of resistance are central to democracy and the potential for social change, what is often ignored is the usurping of resistance through commodification and consumption. Here we argue that it is important to remember that even acts of resistance, such as we have witnessed since the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency of the United States, that speak out against inequality and social harm are commodified and consumed within the spectacular domination of the State and capital, making resistance part and parcel of the neoliberal system that commoditizes in totality.     

The Normality of Political Administration and State Violence: Casuistry,Law, and Drones

Large unmanned aerial vehicles (i.e., drones) equipped with missiles and bombs or battle-equipped have progressively become the newest wave in “warfare.” We argue that the use of drones for targeted assassinations is merely a new technological tool for state violence that is increasingly becoming a regular exercise of the US power in the construction and reification of the broader social geopolitical order. Further, it is through law, domestic and international, that state violence, wars and the use of drones for targeted assassinations are legitimated and are a normality, and continuation of, the political management of the state. Taken with the core of humanitarian law that legitimates war and state violence, we suggest that the use of drones can be interpreted within the body of legislation, political discourse, and laws that serve to normalize and legitimize their use: no different than such processes that occurred with the technological advances that offered military tanks, aerial bombing, projectile missiles or even nuclear and chemical weapons.     

Overlooked and Overshadowed: The Case of Burundi

In east-central Africa, nestled between Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda is Burundi. From the onset of independence in 1961, Burundi has had a history of internal armed conflicts, ethnic tensions and civil unrest in the form of crimes against humanity, massive and systematic rape, and other gross human rights violations that have resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. Nonetheless, there has been relatively little attention paid to these types of crimes by criminologists. Political discourse and subsequent media reports suggest that the cause of the violence in Burundi is rooted in reappearing ethnic tensions between two ethnic groups. Yet, the origins and continued enactment of the conflict is far more complex. In this paper, the authors draw upon the extant state crime literature to both conceptually frame, and theoretically illuminate, the crimes against humanity and other gross human rights violations that have occurred.     

Crime on the High Seas: Crimes of Globalization and the Sinking of the Senegalese Ferry Le Joola

The world’s second largest maritime disaster occurred on September 26th 2002, the sinking of the Senegal’s state run ferry Le Joola, killing 1863 passengers. In the wake of the sinking, it became clear that the state of Senegal held liability for the ferry’s failure; the government readily admitted its errors and several ministers either stepped down or were removed from their positions. In many ways, this case, at least on the surface, looks like a classic example of a state crime – illegal activities carried out by the state or state agencies. However, despite unequivocal governmental responsibility, we suggest that this was not simply a case of state crime. Rather, a thorough investigation and analysis of the reasons and forces behind the Le Joola sinking suggest that international institutions, primarily the World Bank, bear culpability for the disaster due to the way in which their policies and economic development demands altered Senegal’s social, economic and political structures. In conclusion, we offer a criminological analysis of the catalysts leading to the reinstatement of the state run ferry to the coastal waters and the subsequent actions taken by the State of Senegal and of International Society.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Nashville, TN. November 17–20, 2004.     

Practical experiences in application of hair fatty acid ethyl esters and ethyl glucuronide for detection of chronic alcohol abuse in forensic cases

This article presents results from 1872 hair samples, which were analyzed for fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEEs) and ethyl glucuronide (EtG). The results were evaluated in the context of self-reported drinking behavior, the use of hair cosmetics, the gender of the sample donors and hair sample length. For comparison, CDT and GGT in serum were available in 477 and 454 cases, respectively. A number of alcohol abstainers or low moderate drinkers and excessive drinkers were selected for assessment of cut-offs for FAEEs in the proximal 6cm hair segments and for EtG in the proximal 3cm hair segments. Cut-off values were assessed by ROC analysis. It was found that the cut-offs of 1.0ng/mg FAEE and 30pg/mg EtG presently used for excessive drinking lead to a low portion of false positives (4% and 3% respectively) but to a higher portion of false negatives (23% and 25% respectively). Comparison of the mean and medium concentrations in samples without any reported hair cosmetics (N=1079) and in samples with reported use of hair spray (N=79) showed an increase by the factor of about two for FAEE but no significant difference for EtG. Mean values of EtG were decreased by 80% in bleached samples (N=164) and by 63% in dyed samples (N=96). There was no significant effect of bleaching and dyeing on FAEE. Hair gel and hair wax, oil or grease showed no significant effect on both FAEE and EtG. With respect to gender and investigated hair length ambiguous results were obtained because of major differences in the compared subpopulations of male with higher alcohol consumption and mainly shorter hair, and less drinking female with longer hair. For excessive drinkers FAEEs in the 0-6cm hair segment and EtG in the 0-3cm segment decreased with increasing time of reported abstinence before sample collection. These drinkers attain the level of teetotalers only after more than 10 months of abstinence. In comparison to scalp hair, FAEEs recovered from armpit hair and leg hair were lower and from chest hair were higher. EtG in armpit hair was lower and in leg hair higher than in scalp hair. It is concluded that the combined use of FAEE and EtG essentially increases the accuracy of interpretation since both markers complement each other by a different sensitivity to sources of error.     

The Failure of the Spectacle: The Voices Within

This article offers an ethnobiographic analysis of one of the most marginalized populations in contemporary US society: impoverished individuals with schizophrenia, schizoaffective or mania hallucinatory bipolar disorder who are imprisoned, first within their minds, and secondly by the state, what I term “the spectacle.” Punishment for their disease, rather than treatment, forces many of them into constant drift-transition between shelters, seedy motels and the streets: the spectacle’s disposable trash. I argue that to be recognized as a rights-worthy human being within the neoliberal spectacle individuals are required to have the financial, social and cultural resources necessary to actively participate in the labor market and the profit-generating activities of consumption and consumerism. The limited economic resources of the mentally ill keep them from being sufficiently active participants to be viewed as socially worthy. Consequently, they become socially unworthy—the socially dead. The seriously mentally ill experience both spatial and moral dislocation. They are cast out as flawed consumers and failed workers, and more importantly, due to the stigmatization of mental illness, they are disavowed of their humanity, rendering them socially dead.     

The forgotten ones

To date, internecine violence in the Darfur region of Sudan has claimed the lives of 400,000 civilians (Coalition for International Justice March 2006); more than 2 million people have been displaced and countless more have been raped, robbed, intimidated and suffered other depredations of a collapsed social structure. The origins and continued enactment of the conflict is far more complex than is currently reflected in either the discourse of the Sudanese government or international political actors. In this paper, the authors present a rich history of the conflicts within the Darfur region of Sudan while drawing upon the extant state crime literature to both conceptually frame and theoretically illuminate the genocide. Through such an examination, not only does the paper present a holistic assessment of the multitude of social forces and conditions behind the events, but also extends the existing literature on both state criminality and genocide.