Transnational Organized Crime: Challenging International Law Principles on State Jurisdiction

This timely book provides a critical consideration of one of the most pressing matters confronting global and regional strategies for suppressing transnational organized crime today: the question of the scope and rationale of States’ criminal jurisdiction over these cross-border offences. It shines a light on the complex challenges posed by transnational organized crime to international criminal law.

Fulvia Staiano analyses the ways in which transnational organized crime has pushed States, as well as international organizations and institutions, to rethink the boundaries and rationale of territorial and extraterritorial State jurisdiction. The book examines consolidated instances of transnational organized crimes, such as human trafficking, migrant smuggling and trafficking in firearms, but also looks at emerging phenomena which have come to the attention of scholars and practitioners in more recent times, including cybercrime. In doing so, it draws a connection between States’ responses to ‘old’ and ‘new’ transnational crimes while providing an up-to-date analysis of international practice in this field.

Contributing to the broader academic debate on the need to conceptualize transnational criminal law as an area of study separate from international criminal law, this book will be a key resource for postgraduate students, researchers and academics in the fields of public international law, criminal law, international relations, as well as social and political studies.