The thesis is a study of how Chinese illegal tiger parts trading networks are organized. In particular, this thesis tests in a qualitative manner the causal relationship between three independent variables and the network organizations of these markets. The three independent variables are “ethnicity”, “level of enforcement” and “proximity to the source country”. The thesis also discusses the dynamics of the illegal transactions of tiger parts products. Legitimate meditators or dispute resolutions mechanisms are lacking in the underworld so the risks, which the parties undertake during trading, are far higher. This thesis explores how illegal transactions are enforced, carried out and honored in this trade. In order to map the organization of the tiger trade, I conducted fieldwork in three trading hubs across China: Lhasa. Kunming and Xining. I discovered five tiger parts trading networks, three of which specialized in the trading of tiger skins and two in tiger bones. Within these networks, the level of perceived but not the actual level of risk influences the decisions of the actors in the network. Entry into the network is easy when the perceived level of enforcement is low. In these settings, there is no ethnic restriction for entering the network; the supplier is willing to trade with anyone with a trustworthy reputation. On the other hand, accessibility to the network is strictly controlled when actors perceive a high level of enforcement in their operating environment. Under this setting, the organization of the network becomes more exclusive and ethnically homogenous, as shown in the Tibetan tiger skin-trading network in Lhasa and the tiger bone-trading network in Kunming. The proximity of the tiger source country to the re-distribution sites (fieldwork cities) also influences the organization of the networks. When the level of enforcement is low and the tiger source country is far away from the re-distribution sites, a monetary deposit is required in order to show that the buyer is serious about his/her request, as shown by the tiger skin-trading network in Kunming.

This study is an exploration and extension of previous research on the interactive effects of victim-race and victim-gender on death sentence outcomes. Williams and Holcomb's (2004) study suggests that an interactive effect exists between victim-race and victim-gender on Ohio death sentencing outcomes, such that killers of White women are especially singled out for capital punishment. The current study analyzes a sample of death eligible cases at the trial level in North Carolina to determine if Williams & Holcomb's findings hold up for a different sample of cases and in a different state. Logistic regression is used to determine if there are direct and/or interactive effects of victim's race and victim's gender on capital sentencing outcomes, controlling for the variety of other factors that influence that decision. Results suggest that the interactive effects reported by Williams and Holcomb do not exist in North Carolina at the sentencing/penalty processing phase of capital trials.

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Le droit peut rencontrer le non-droit. Ceci est possible et avéré car  le processus judiciaire de l’adéquation d’une solution juridique abstraite à un cas concret d’espèce impose au juge nécessairement une adaptation au droit applicable. Ceci est particulièrement vrai en droit international car l’adaptation du droit en vue de son application l’amène à glisser vers une ouverture vers des éléments étrangers au droit.Cette étude vise à fournir une systématisation théorique de la qualification et de l’utilisation par le juge international du facteur extra-juridiqueLa réflexion doit alors débuter par une première identification des facteurs extra-juridiques dans le raisonnement judiciaire, et cela, à travers une lecture exégétique de la jurisprudence consultative et contentieuse. L’identification de tels éléments étrangers au droit permettra ainsi la détermination et l’analyse des critères utilisés par le juge international et l’existence d’une éventuelle taxinomie entre les différents facteurs.Si le juge international accepte le recours au non-droit, une telle ouverture n’est pas sans signification. La portée des facteurs extra-juridiques sur la jurisprudence de la Cour doit alors être recherchée. Il s’agit d’une portée double, d’une part normative, et d’autre part substantielle. Les facteurs extra-juridiques ont en effet un rôle de structuration du discours juridique international, lorsqu’intégrés au droit, car ils facilitent le travail d’individualisation des différentes espèces à travers leur rôle adjuvant dans l’interprétation des faits et car ils facilitent également le travail de contextualisation des décisions à travers leur façonnage de la norme internationale. Les facteurs extra-juridiques disposent également d’un rôle dans l’évolution de la norme internationale car ils contribuent à la diversité culturelle des juges de la Cour, et de ce fait, sont eux-même vecteurs d’interdisciplinarité, tout en permettant une interprétation évolutive de la norme international et en contribuant à l’ouverture vers de tendances nouvelles. / Law can meet non-law. This is possible and true since the judicial process of adequacy of an abstract judicial solution to a concrete case imposes an adaptation to the applicable law. This is particularly correct in international law field because the law adaptation to its application brings it to open itself to foreign element of the law.This study intends to provide a theoretical systematization of the qualification and the use of extra-legal factor by the international judge.Reflexion must begin with a first identification of extra-legal factors in the legal thinking through an exegetic lecture of advisory proceedings and contentious cases. The identification of these elements strangers to law will allow the determination and the analysis of the criteria used by international judge(s) and the existence of an eventual classification between such different factors.If international judge accepts to have resort to lawlessness, this opening is not meaningless. Extra-legal factors’ scope on case law must be researched. It’s about a double scope, firstly normative and secondly substantial. Extra-legal factors do have indeed a role in the structuration of international law speech, once integrated to law, because they facilitate the different cases’ individualisation work through their helping role in facts’ interpretation and because they facilitate the decisions’ contextualization work as well, through an international rule shaping. They also have a role in the evolution of international rule since they contribute to the cultural diversity of the ICJ’s judges and, thereby, they become vectors of interdisciplinarity, while they allow an evolutive interpretation of international rule and they contribute to the opening to new tendances.

This study aims to use critical discourse analysis to discern how support for vigilante acts is justified, legitimized, and constructed. By analyzing 1000 comments left on YouTube videos depicting violent vigilante acts, this study looks to create a discourse of the acts, their context, and the actors involved. The videos depict individuals taking the law into their own hands as they react to a crime, theft. Both videos end in the death of the criminal. One video takes place in the U.S. and one in the U.K. Previous research has focused on distrust of police and the justice system, to understand why citizens resort to vigilantism. With discussions on fear of crime and community justice. This study shows similar sentiments to previous research. The comments describe a discourse of society as declining, and crime perceived as increasing. The commentators create a sense of belonging and identify with the vigilante as an ‘insider’ whilst the ‘criminal’ is dehumanized and described as the ‘outsider’, and the criminal justice system is constructed as dysfunctional/illegitimate. This discourse leads the participants to see the act of the vigilante as honorable and necessary, as it’s perceived as the only way to get justice. Rights (such as due process) are pictured as something that is earned, and the criminal forfeited these rights when the decision was made to commit a crime. This points to what is described as the problem with a ‘strong state’ and how it might encourage vigilantism. This study adds to previous research by painting a full-picture critical discourse of support for vigilantism whilst also exploring how societal power dynamics play a role in its construction.

Based upon two years of ethnographic fieldwork in London, England, which incorporated nearly 200 interviews with gang members, gang associates, and police officers, among others, this thesis addresses three questions presently unresolved in the street gangs literature: What is the business of gangs? How are gangs organised? And how do gangs recruit? With regard the business of gangs, this thesis illustrates how recreation, crime, enterprise, and extra-legal governance represent sequential stages in the evolutionary cycle of London’s street gangs. Gang member testimony emphasises how gangs typically begin life as neighbourhood-based peer groups, but also how, in response to external threats and financial commitments, gangs grow to incorporate street-level drugs distribution businesses that very much resemble the multi-level marketing structure of direct-sales companies. People join gangs to make money, achieve status, and obtain protection. Gangs engage in turf wars, acquire violent resources, and develop hierarchical structures in order to maintain provision of these desirable goods and services. Gang organisation, in turn, becomes a function of gang business. To better understand the nature and extent of gang organisation, this thesis moves on to discuss the presence of subgroups, hierarchy and leadership, pecuniary and non-pecuniary incentives, rules, responsibilities, and restrictions, and consequences for absconding within gangs. It further presents how, in order to convey reputation and achieve intimidation, gangs seek association with elements of popular culture that help promote their image. Finally, through the novel application of signalling theory to the gang recruitment process, this thesis demonstrates how gangs face a primary trust dilemma in their uncertainty over the quality of recruits. Given that none of the trust-warranting properties for gang membership can be readily discovered from observation, gangs look for observable signs correlated with these properties. Gangs face a secondary trust dilemma in their uncertainty over the reliability of signs because certain agents (e.g., police informants, rival gang members, and adventure-seekers) have incentives to mimic them. To overcome their informational asymmetry gangs thus screen for signs that are too costly for mimics to fake but affordable for the genuine article. The thesis concludes with a discussion of gang desistance and intervention in the context of escalating youth violence in London.

'Thieves-in-law' (vory-v-zakone in Russian or kanonieri qurdebi in Georgian) are career criminals belonging to a criminal fraternity that has existed at least since the 1930s in the Soviet Gulag. These actors still exist in one form or another in post-Soviet countries and have integrated into transnational organised criminal networks. For reasons yet to be explicated, thieves-in-law became exceptionally prevalent in the Soviet republic of Georgia. Here, by the 1990s, they formed a mafia network where this means criminal associations that attempt to monopolize protection in legal and illegal sectors of the economy. In 2005, Mikhail Saakashvili, the current president of Georgia claimed that 'in the past 15 years ... Georgia was not ruled by [former President] Shevardnadze, but by thieves-in-law.' Directly transferring anti-organised crime policy from Italy and America, Saakashvili's government made reform of the criminal justice system generally and an attack on the thieves-in-law specifically a cornerstone of the Rose Revolution. New legislation criminalises the possession of the status of ‘thief-in-law’ and of membership of criminal associations that constitute what is known as the ‘thieves’ world’ (qurduli samkaro). Along with a sweeping reform of the police and prisons and a ‘culture of lawfulness’ campaign, Georgian criminal justice reforms since 2003 may be seen as the first sustained anti-mafia policy to be implemented in a post-Soviet country. It also appears to have been very successful. The longevity and sudden decline of the thieves-in-law in Georgia provides the main questions that the following study addresses: How do we account for changes in the levels of resilience to state attack of actors carrying the elite criminal status of ‘thief-in-law’? How has this resilience been so effectively compromised since 2005? Utilising unique access to primary sources of data such as police files, court cases, archives and expert interviews this thesis studies the dynamics of changing mafia activities, recruitment practices, and structural forms of a criminal group as it relates to changes in the environment and, in particular, the recent anti-organised crime policy.

During the 1890s, a series of extra-legal and illegal activities known as "whitecapping" occurred in Sevier County, Tennessee. While the early episodes were based on traditional responses to deviant behavior in rural communities, whitecapping reflected the loss of community within the county. This study examines the relationship of whitecapping and community in Sevier County and how it changed during the 1890s. The several, often contradictory, social conditions which affected the life of every Sevier Countian are also examined to show the decline of community consensus during this period. Finally, the events galavanizing public opinion against the whitecaps are analyzed to understand their enduring effect on community in Sevier County.

During the 1890s, a series of extra-legal and illegal activities known as "whitecapping" occurred in Sevier County, Tennessee. While the early episodes were based on traditional responses to deviant behavior in rural communities, whitecapping reflected the loss of community within the county. This study examines the relationship of whitecapping and community in Sevier County and how it changed during the 1890s. The several, often contradictory, social conditions which affected the life of every Sevier Countian are also examined to show the decline of community consensus during this period. Finally, the events galavanizing public opinion against the whitecaps are analyzed to understand their enduring effect on community in Sevier County.

Borderlands are critical security zones but remain poorly understood. In regions plagued by drug violence and conflict, violent groups compete for territorial control, cooperate in illegal cross-border activities, and substitute for the functions of the state in these areas. Despite undermining physical security, fuelling fear, and challenging the state’s sovereignty, the exact modi operandi of these groups are little known. Against this backdrop, this thesis explores how different interactions among violent non-state actors (VNSAs) in the Colombian-Ecuadorian and Colombian-Venezuelan borderlands impact on citizen security. These border areas attract rebels, paramilitaries and criminal organisations alike: they constitute geo-strategic corridors for the global cocaine industry and are sites of supply and operation for the major actors involved in Colombia’s decades-long armed internal conflict. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this thesis consolidates the literature on conflict, security and organised crime, borders and borderlands, and anthropological approaches to fear and violence. It integrates theories of cooperation among social actors with original empirical research. It is based on a comparative, multi-sited case-study design, using ethnographic methods complemented by quantitative data. The research involved over twelve months of fieldwork with 433 interviews and participant observation on both sides of the crisis-affected Colombia-Ecuador and Colombia-Venezuela borders, and in Bogotá, Caracas and Quito. Developing a typology of VNSA interactions, I argue that these create not only physical violence but also less visible types of insecurity: when VNSAs fight each other, citizens are exposed to violence but follow the rules imposed by the opposing parties. Fragile alliances produce uncertainty among communities and erode the social fabric by fuelling interpersonal mistrust. Where VNSAs provide security and are socially recognised, "shadow citizen security" arises: security based on undemocratic means. I show that the geography of borderlands reinforces the distinct impacts of VNSA arrangements on citizen security yet renders them less visible.