State Crimes

Dawn L. Rothe & Christopher W. Mullins

State crime is any action that violates international public law and/or a state's own domestic law when committed by individual actors acting on behalf of, or in the name of, the state, even when such acts are motivated by their personal economical, political, and ideological interests. Crimes of the state have been one of the foremost social problems of the past 100 years, with wide-reaching costs and little in the way of potential controls. During the course of the 20th century, the state crimes of Turkey, Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Pol Pot and the Khymer Rouge, and Maoist China were especially large-scale, dramatic examples. Crimes of the state involving weapons of mass destruction, genocides, and crimes against humanity have been all too frequent (e.g., Bosnia, Croatia, Darfur, Democratic Republic of Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Yugoslavia). Other charges of state crime occurring around the world involve Egypt, ...

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