International Law

• Definition of state crime based upon international law. 
• Rothe and Mullins 2008: state crime any action by or on behalf of a state that violates international law and/or a states own domestic law 
• Evaluation: 

  1. Does not depend on a sociologists personal definition of state crime 
  2. Globally agreed definitions of state crime 
  3. International law intentionally designed to deal with state crime unlike domestic law 
  4. But… international law is socially constructed through the use of power 
  5. International law focuses on war crimes and crimes against humanity rather than state crimes such as corruption
• Strand and Tuman 2012: Japan has sought to overturn the international ban on whaling by concentrating its foreign aid on impoverished ‘microstates’, including six small Caribbean island nations to bribe them to vote against the ban