International and Transnational Crime

Final Paper: International and Transnational Crime
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International and Transnational Crimes
International crimes are of concern globally and are punishable despite where they take place in the world. These crimes include genocide, humanitarian crimes, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. These crimes relate directly to humanitarian crises as they occur during conflicts. The International Criminal Law (ICL) governs the procedures in the international courts and tribunals. The goal of ICL is to punish acts that affect human rights concerning security, life, and liberty. The International Criminal Court (ICC) investigates and tries people charged with international crimes. The ICC ensures that people who may enjoy legal immunity in their states face the law for international crimes.
Definition of Neutralization Theory
The neutralization theory states that individuals develop techniques to enable them to engage in unlawful deeds. People are conscious about their moral obligation to do what is right; therefore, engaging in crime requires silencing the urge to do right (Maruna & Copes, 2017). David Matza and Gresham Sykes developed this theory in 1957 to explain delinquency. Criminals try to neutralize their acts by using justifications to support their behavior. A person planning to commit a crime feels guilty in normal circumstances, which stops them from going ahead. For delinquents to participate in immoral acts and then switch back to conventionally acceptable behavior, they apply neutralization techniques. Some of the techniques delinquents and criminals use to justify their unlawful actions involve negation of responsibility, refutation of the victim, negation of injury, rebuking of condemners, and referral to highly placed loyalties (Sykes & Matza, 1957).
The denial of injury approach involves the offender insisting that their deeds did not cause trauma to the victim. They may also deny responsibility by posing as victims and proposing that the situations were beyond their control, forcing them to commit crimes. In this case, the victim may argue that it was not their fault that they engaged in the crime. Another neutralization technique is the refutation of the victim, where the accused insists that the offended deserved the unlawful acts done unto them. The offender may condemn the condemners by insisting that those who blame them do it out of malice to shift the blame from themselves. In the appeal to higher loyalties, the accused maintains that their offense is for the benefit of others, and they were indebted to commit the crime. Sykes and Matza further wrote that most delinquents experienced a sense of shame or remorse about their crimes.
International Crime: Genocide
Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin came up with the term genocide following, to some extent, the Nazi directives to exterminate Jewish people during the Holocaust. 'Genos-' means race, and '-cide' means killing. In 1946, the United Nations General Assembly acknowledged genocide as a criminal offense under International law. Genocide was codified as an independent crime in 1948, during the Genocide Convention. Many countries around the world have crim...