Despite the devastation caused by environmental catastrophes, these phenomena have yet to garner significant attention as a subject of criminological inquiry. This thesis is framed by the following question: How can we problematize the notion of “natural” disaster to arrive at a criminological understanding of human culpability in the production of harm? I argue that the degree of human suffering caused by natural disasters is aggravated by imperialistic state crimes, which predispose populations to conditions of vulnerability and dependency. I substantiate this argument with an analysis of Haiti and demonstrate how its history of imperialistic exploitation by the US amounted to a pattern of state crime victimization that marginalized Haitians and, consequently, shaped their suffering from the 2010 earthquake. The story of Haiti exemplifies the relationship between the contemporary hardships of a natural disaster and the historical injustices of state crime, thus illuminating the relevance of a criminology of catastrophe. / UOIT

In the contemporary world, the fight against impunity has become a fundamental political claim, a social goal and a main concern for human rights movements. However, it is unclear how we can delimit this fight, what are its aims and, ultimately, the remedies it proposes to overcome impunity. The academic studies and human rights mechanisms referring to this issue are not sufficiently clarifying. They often lack clear theoretical distinctions and stable empirical observations. Moreover, in social discourses impunity is employed with extremely vague connotations. This research addresses this lacuna, offering a conceptualization and characterization of impunity from a socio-legal perspective. With this purpose in mind, this work develops an analysis of impunity through the study of a particular kind of criminality. The study of state crime provides a prolific perspective for the analysis of the phenomenon of impunity, allowing to visualize the constitution of different blockages against the autonomous operation of the criminal justice. Particularly, this research studies an event of enforced disappearance initiated at the siege of the Colombian Palace of Justice in 1985, through a reconstruction focused on the perspective of the victims using a combination of qualitative methods. This field work, alongside different explorations of the sociological, human rights and criminological state of art of impunity, provides a sociological reflection on the concept of impunity. In the end, taking into account the problematization of the concept and its uses in social discourses, this work proposes a conceptualization apt for overcoming the vagueness of the definition of impunity as well as allowing a delimitation of the fight against it, leaving space for possible innovations on the penal rationality and possibly reinforcing a human rights agenda, concerned with the escalation of repression through punishment and committed with the restoration of social links and the victims’ rights.

The dissertation aims to develop an understanding of the outcomes and limitations of formal and informal control of the Swedish state, and of the positions and strategies of the social agents involved in this field. The dissertation contributes with new perspectives on controls directed at the state, comparing various control organs (the Parliamentary Ombudsman, the Chancellor of Justice, the United Nations, the European Court of Human Rights and NGOs) and focusing on a wide range of wrongs and harms by the Swedish state. Paper I explores incidents for which the Swedish state and its agencies have been judged to be responsible by formal control organs. Paper II analyzes the accounts used by state representatives in judgments from formal control organs on issues related to migration. Paper III examines the characteristics of those who hold the state accountable via the European Court. Paper IV explores how formal and informal control organs frame problems in relation to the Swedish state’s treatment of residence permit applicants. The studies demonstrate that formal domestic control organs mainly direct criticisms at state agencies that focus on particular and procedural issues. International bodies of formal and particularly informal control publish criticisms of the state that focus on general and systemic issues. The dissertation highlights how control organs offer limited access to accountability, and how controls of the state may be perceived as both ineffective and counterproductive. Another conclusion is that the positions and strategies of the agents in this field are dependent on their specific capital (resources, knowledge and support). Control of the state is understood as a field of struggle for recognition and legitimacy, in which accusations are denied by representatives of the state and control organs balance their criticism in order to maintain credibility. Both informal control organs and those who hold the state accountable must adjust to the rules of the game or risk being defined out. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 4: Manuscript.</p>

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No. of bitstreams: 1 TeseGS.pdf: 6224657 bytes, checksum: 1ce36ae40d89c7d6fcd9526473d40e1e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-19 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / This research aimed to understand how the institutions and state operators’ crime control are being affected by the emergence of new forms of organization of the "world of crime." It wondered how the institutions and operators find themselves affected by the emergence of the First Command of the Capital, the PCC; which the impact on their work, on the ways to exercise control and institutional management of the crime; which representations they elaborate about the changes in the contexts they operate and develop their professional activities. Therefore, it started analyzing two empirical cases that took place in São Paulo, involving the PCC and the so-­‐‑called "debate" -­‐‑ a new management mechanism of violence brought from the consolidation of the CPC in and out of the São Paulo prison system. The cases also help to identify two main strategies to crime control in São Paulo: i) a militarized control guided mainly by lethal and selective fighting with alleged criminals, played by the Military Police and; a classic judicial control, in which the logic of the investigation remains linked to archaic model of the police investigation and prioritizes incarceration for certain types of crimes and people, while holding the low levels of punishment for cases of police lethality. Part of the field work was conducted through interviews with civil and military police, sheriffs, prosecutors and judges who work in crime control, including the Special Group Against Organized Crime of the Prosecutor's Office (GAECO). It was developed a research based on official data on crime and on investments in public safety in order to observe trends, preferences and policy choices of area managers in the last decade. The results indicate that the emergence of the PCC has affected the crime control strategies performed by each of these institutions, although continuities have been observed. The PCC started seen as "organized crime", sign often claimed to justify violent and lethal actions in alleged confrontations. Investigations involving the PCC have been recurrently conducted through a partnership between prosecutors and military police, often rather of the judicial police, which has generated tensions between the institutions and their operators. The Civil Police, in its turn, operates with the coexistence of "inquisitorial logic" of investigation and effort to operates the transformations that the emergence of "organized crime" has imposed, besides seeking to circumvent the arising obstacles "scrapping" of institution. / O objetivo desta pesquisa foi compreender a forma como as instituições e os operadores estatais do controle do crime estão sendo afetados pela emergência das novas formas de organização do “mundo do crime”. Perguntou-se como as instituições e os operadores se veem afetados com a emergência do Primeiro Comando da Capital, o PCC; qual o impacto disto sobre o seu trabalho, sobre os modos de exercer o controle e a administração institucional do crime; quais representações eles elaboram sobre as mudanças nos contextos em que atuam e desenvolvem suas atividades profissionais. Para tanto, partiu-se da análise de dois casos empíricos ocorridos no interior de São Paulo, envolvendo o PCC e o chamado “debate” - um novo mecanismo de gestão da violência trazido com a consolidação do PCC dentro e fora do sistema prisional paulista. Os casos também auxiliaram na identificação de duas estratégias centrais no controle ao crime em São Paulo: i) um controle militarizado pautado, sobretudo, pelo enfrentamento letal e seletivo de supostos criminosos, rotagonizado pela Polícia Militar e; ii) um controle judicial clássico, no qual a lógica da investigação permanece vinculada ao modelo arcaico do inquérito policial e que prioriza o encarceramento para determinados tipos de crimes e sujeitos, ao mesmo tempo em que sustenta os baixos índices de punição para os casos de letalidade policial. Parte do trabalho de campo foi realizado por meio de entrevistas com policiais civis e militares, delegados, promotores e juízes que atuam no controle do crime, incluindo o Grupo de Atuação Especial Contra o Crime Organizado do Ministério Público (GAECO). Também foi elaborada uma pesquisa com base em dados oficiais sobre a criminalidade e sobre os investimentos em segurança pública, a fim observar as tendências, preferências e escolhas políticas dos gestores da área na última década. Os resultados indicam que a emergência do PCC tem afetado as estratégias de controle do crime executada por cada uma destas instituições, ainda que permanências tenham sido observadas. O PCC passou a carregar o signo de “crime organizado”, muitas vezes acionado para justificar ações violentas e letais em supostos confrontos. As investigações que envolvem o grupo têm sido recorrentemente, executada por meio de uma parceria entre Ministério Público e Polícia Militar, muitas vezes, em detrimento da polícia judiciária, o que tem gerado tensões entre as instituições e seus operadores. A polícia civil, por sua vez, convive com a coexistência entre a “lógica inquisitorial” da investigação e o esforço em operar as transformações que a emergência do “crime organizado” tem lhe imposto, além buscar driblar os obstáculos advindos do “sucateamento” da instituição.

According to Green &amp; Ward's (2004) definition, state crime means human right violations or state organizational deviance. Based on the 2020 political conflicts in Thailand, at least four historical actions can potentially identify as state crimes—the 2014 coup, the 2017 constitution, the usage of the lèse majesté law, and the state officers using violence to force people to remain in silence. Beyond that, there are two contradicting political narratives—the conservative and the reformist. While the conservative justified the four actions mentioned earlier, the reformists do not. This study aims to explore the development of the political narratives of the two conflicting sides based on their own verbal explanation. In addition, it discovers the linkages between those narratives and the actions taken towards the current situation in Thailand. The researcher uses the Narrative Approach to Qualitative Inquiry to interview participants from both political narrative sides. Then the results are analyzed by the Narrative Thematic Analysis process. The analysis reveals that the surroundings (political news, for example) influence conservatives and reformists in their political narrative development process. Furthermore, they make political moves accordingly to their interpretation of those inputs. Hence, it is clear that political narrative impacts the justification of state crime in this particular situation. Lastly, stepping out of the echo chamber, the justice system based on the rule of law, and using digital media with self-awareness potentially decreases state crime justification, the study finds.

L'absence de définition du crime international d’agression, qualifié pourtant comme la mère de tous les crimes internationaux, par la Cour pénale internationale ainsi que l'incapacité du Conseil de sécurité de qualifier et de sanctionner de telles violations afin d’établir la justice et la paix internationales, participent au fait que l’agression, au travers du recours à la force armée, reste malheureusement de nos jours une vieille tradition aussi fréquente que dangereuse. Au-delà de la difficulté conceptuelle, il existe une autre difficulté difficilement surmontable sur les scènes nationale et internationale, à savoir la question de la répression de ces guerres. L’absence d’identification des auteurs et la non reconnaissance des victimes conduisent à une totale impunité, source de répétition de cette violation, par les grandes puissances. Afin de savoir s’il est réaliste et opportun de poursuivre les auteurs de ce crime en tant qu’acte de l’État sans cependant oublier principalement la dimension individuelle de l'acte, l'objet de cette recherche a été de déterminer tous les recours possibles tant par la voie judiciaire que par la voie politique (l’ONU, les organisations régionales, les parlements nationaux, l’opinion publique). Concernant la voie judiciaire, il s'est agi d'analyser tant la répression par le juge interne (dans les systèmes français, allemand, américain et anglais) que par le juge international devant la Cour pénale International et les autres tribunaux internationaux.Cette thèse s’efforce de faire une présentation de toutes les possibilités réelles d’engager la responsabilité pour crime international d'agression, aussi bien en ce qui concerne l’agression en tant que faute politique majeure que comme crime, l’étude de ces deux aspects étant dressée par une analyse des obstacles rencontrés par l’application du droit international et national dans le contexte du crime d’agression. / The lack of definition of the international crime of aggression, described as the mother of all international crimes, by the International Criminal Court, and the inability of the Security Council to qualify and punish such violations to establish justice and peace, participate that the aggression, through the use of armed force, remains unfortunately nowadays a tradition as often as dangerous. Beyond the conceptual difficulty, there is another problem that is as difficult to overcome in the national and international scenes, namely identifying the way to repress these wars. The lack of identification of the authors of these wars and the non-recognition of the victims lead to lack of punishment which is the main source of repetition of the violations by the great powers.In order to know whether it is realistic and appropriate to prosecute this crime as an act of the State, without forgetting the individual dimension of the act, the purpose of this research was to identify all remedies whether through the courts or by political means (the UN, regional organizations, national parliaments, public opinion). Concerning judicial matters, this research analyzes internal repression by the judge (in the French, German, American and English systems) and by the international judge to the International Criminal Court and other international tribunals. This thesis aims to present all real possibilities of engagement and liabilities for international crimes of aggression, whether these are treated as major political mistakes or crimes, through an analysis of the obstacles encountered by the application of international and domestic laws in the context of crimes of aggression.

La criminalisation de l’agression et l’établissement de la compétence de la Cour pénale internationale sur ce crime obligent à donner une définition de ce crime, de même qu’à déterminer les conditions dans lesquelles la Cour exercera sa compétence sur ce crime. Cette tâche n’est cependant pas aisée en raison de la « nature particulière » du crime d’agression. Le problème majeur qui se pose est celui de la difficulté à définir et à encadrer le crime d’agression tout en respectant les règles cardinales du droit international pénal d’un côté et les exigences du droit de la Charte ou du droit international du maintien de la paix de l’autre côté.En raison de la nature juridique de l’agression et plus précisément du positionnement atypique qui caractérise le crime d’agression, crime à la croisée du droit international du maintien de la paix et du droit international pénal, sans oublier le fait que ce crime vise exclusivement les personnes « effectivement en mesure de contrôler ou de diriger l’action politique ou militaire d’un État », le régime juridique du crime d’agression va être assez particulier, ceci en comparaison de celui des autres crimes internationaux contenus dans le Statut de Rome. / The criminalization of aggression and the establishment of the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction over this crime make it necessary to provide a definition for this crime, and to determine the conditions under which the Court shall exercise its jurisdiction over this crime. However, this task is not an easy one given the ‘’particular nature’’ of the crime of aggression. The major challenge we are faced with lies in the difficulty to define and circumscribe the crime of aggression while abiding by the cardinal rules of international criminal law on the one hand, and the requirements of the law of the Charter or the law of the international Peacekeeping on the other. Due to the legal nature of the aggression, more precisely the atypical positioning characteristic of the crime of aggression, a crime which is halfway between the law of the international peacekeeping and the international criminal law, not forgetting the fact that this crime targets exclusively individuals who are ‘’ actually able to control or lead the political or military action of a State,’’ the legal regime of the crime of aggression is going to be fairly peculiar, in comparison with that of the other international crimes provided for by the Rome Statute