I’m currently putting the finishing touches on a new Masters-level course on the history of international crime and international law that I will be teaching next semester. Comments or feedback are welcome!

The course description is:

“This course will examine the parallel rise of global international criminal networks and international legal systems to combat transnational illicit activity in the 20th century. Themes would include human trafficking, forced labour, narcotics, and money laundering alongside the international reform activism and diplomatic initiatives to create global legal responses to these issues. The course would encompass global and transnational historical methodology and develop students historiographical understanding of the interplay between black markets, social movements, and international relations.”

Session 1: International Law and International Crime as History

Session 2: How International is International Law?

• Martti Koskenniemi, “Histories of International law: Dealing with Eurocentrism,” Rechtsgeschichte (2011).

Session 3: Globalization and Illicit Markets

• Gilman et. al., Deviant Globalization: Black Market Economy in the 21^st Century (2011).

Session 4: Global Systems (1) – Prohibition Regimes

• Ethan A. Nadelmann, “Global Prohibition Regimes: The Evolution of Norms in International Society,” International Organization 44, no. 4 (1990).

Session 5: Global Systems (2) – Neo-Medievalism

• Jörg Friedrichs, “The Neomedieval Renaissance: Global Governance and International Law in the New Middle Ages,” in Governance and International Legal Theory, eds. Dekker and Werner.

Session 6: Organized Crime as History

• Cyrille Fijnaut, “Searching for Organized Crime in History,” in The Oxford Handbook of Organized Crime, ed. Letizia Paoli.
• Edward Kleemans, “Criminal Organization and Transnational Crime,” in Histories of International Crime, ed. Gerben Bruinsma (2015).

Session 7: Migration (1) – White Slavery

• Julia Laite, “Traffickers and Pimps in the Era of White Slavery,” Past and Present (2017)

 Session 8: Migration (2) – Human Trafficking

• Marlou Schrover, “History of Slavery, Human Smuggling and Trafficking 1860–2010,” in Histories of International Crime, ed. Gerben Bruinsma (2015).

Session 9: Narcotics Trafficking (1) – Interwar Europe

• Alan A. Block, “European Drug Traffic and Traffickers between the Wars: The Policy of Suppression and Its Consequences,” Journal of Social History 23, no. 2 (1989).

Session 10: Narcotics Trafficking (2) – Global South

• Giovanni Molano Cruz, “A View from the South: The Global Creation of the War on Drugs,” Contexto Internacional 39, no. 3 (2017).

Session 10: Narcotics Trafficking (3) – Global Trade

• Chantal Thomas, “Disciplining globalization: international law, illegal trade, and the case of narcotics,” Michigan Journal of International Law (2002).

Session 11: International Finance (1) – Counterfeiting

• David Petrucelli, “Banknotes from the Underground: Counterfeiting and the International Order in Interwar Europe,” Journal of Contemporary History (2015).

Session 12: International Finance (2) – Offshore Money

• Vanessa Ogle, “Archipelago Capitalism: Tax Havens, Offshore Money, and the State, 1950s–1970s,” The American Historical Review 122, no. 5 (2017).

Session 13: International Terrorism (1) – Assassinations

• Ben Saul, “The Legal Response of the League of Nations to Terrorism,” Journal of International Criminal Justice 4, no. 1 (2006).
  

Session 14: International Terrorism (2) – Hijacking

• Joseph Slaughter, “Hijacking Human Rights: Neoliberalism, the New Historiography, and the End of the Third World,” Human Rights Quarterly 40 (2018).