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Severe Economic Crimes Committed in Transitional Periods – Crimes under International Criminal Law?

This article presents some of the important findings of the PhD research project “Criminal responsibility of severe economic crimes committed in transitional period, ” supervised by professors K. Turković and H. J. Albrecht. The project belongs to Research Focus I of Max Planck partner Group: Balkan Criminology: Violence, Organized Crime and Illegal Markets. This article has its focus on the concept of qualifying severe (transitional) economic offenses as crimes under international law. It aims at exploring legal and social preconditions under which severe (transnational) economic offenses could be qualified as such. Placing more emphasis on the indivisibility of human rights and on the importance of including the protection of economic rights in the Statute of the ICC could be seen as the next necessary step in order to correspond with global developments concerning the concept of human security. Furthermore, the project, as elaborated in this article, is exploring whether it is possible at all to aim to achieve security and “well-being of the world” in today´s global world without prosecuting severe economic crimes, especially those occurring in transitional periods. Economic crime offences have often been neglected in criminal proceedings and the reports of truth commissions that have followed economic transitions or conflicts, although such crimes can result in substantial losses for the economy, society and rule of law. The Balkan region is no exception to this rule. In order to answer the research questions, the Croatian experience in addressing severe transitional economic offences will be taken as an example. Croatia abolished the statute of limitations for transitional economic offences with retroactive effect with the justification that those crimes are regarded “as extremely grave crimes for which it is necessary, right and justified to rule out application of statute of limitations, particularly having in mind the time, circumstances of perpetration and consequences caused .” In this way, these economic offenses are equated with the most serious crimes under international law, i.e. genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. This article examines whether one can find justification for such an identification for severe economic crimes at the international level.

international and transitional economic crimes, violations of economic, soical and cultural rights, transtional justice, human security, International Criminal Court

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