engleski

Criminal responsibility for severe economic crimes committed in the transitional period

Serious economic crimes and violations of economic, social and cultural rights have often been neglected in criminal proceedings and/or reports of truth commissions that have followed economic transitions or conflicts. Although these economic crimes often resulted in a substantial loss of profit in the overall economy and in society, they have not been widely and effectively prosecuted. The Central-East and Balkan region is no exception to this rule. However, as argued in this PhD, from Nuremberg on, there have been attempts and successful cases in prosecuting war profiteering cases. Even quite recently, ICC’s prosecutor called for such a prosecution to be conducted before the ICC. This PhD focuses on criminal responsibility for severe economic offences committed in the transitional period, as well as on establishing serious economic criminal offence as crime under international law. It explores legal and social preconditions under which serious economic offences in general may be characterized as crimes under international criminal law. It searches for answers to why those crimes were left out of the focus of mainstream international criminal law development that occurred after World War II. In order to find justification for introducing new (transitional) economic offences in the ICC Statute (ICCSt), Art 21 of ICCSt is used as the guiding discourse. The underlying “Rechtgut” researched in this PhD study is the protection of economic and social rights (understood both as collective and individual rights). This PhD study therefore places emphasis on the indivisibility of human rights and explores whether prosecuting serious economic crimes should be seen as a necessary step in order to correspond with new global developments and with the concept of human security, as it is understood today. Therefore, the narratives of this PhD study refer to the connecting of international criminal law with discourses of international human rights law, security studies, (supranational) criminology, political sciences, transitional justice, (economic) criminal law and international criminal justice in order to find arguments for why it is necessary to start prosecuting serious (transitional) economic offences as crimes under international law and is the Rechtsgut in need of protection by the prosecution of those crimes on an international level, sheltered by the “security, peace and well-being of the world.” Accordingly, possible approaches of how to address these crimes at the international criminal level are put forward and explored in this PhD, through, for example, amendments to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) ratione materiae jurisdiction or prosecuting severe (serious and widespread) transitional economic offences as crimes against humanity as “other inhumane acts.” Finally, this PhD establishes that Art. 7(1)(k) of the ICCSt is the most plausible solution for prosecuting serious economic crimes and articulates which economic crimes are those that should be prosecuted as other inhumane acts.

economic and social rights ; economic crimes ; serious (transtional) economic crimes ; phenomenology of political-white-collar crimes ; transitional justice ; human security ; international criminalization and Rechtsgut ; international criminal law ; International Criminal Court ; crimes against humanity ; grand corruption ; other inhumane acts

Rad je obranjen u veljači 2016. u Freiburgu ; pisan kao dvojni doktorat ; doktorandica Max Planck Instituta za poredbeno i međunarodno kazneno pravo u Freiburgu.