The crime of crimes and the crime of criminology: genocide, criminology and Darfur

Blight of the last century and inauspicious marker of this one, genocide is frequently referred to as the ‘crime of crimes’. As such, it is extraordinary that Anglo-American criminology has not properly applied itself to its study. Criminology's neglect of supranational crime such as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide is all the more striking given their prominence on the international political agenda since 1945. Since then, we might have expected the growing power of human rights to have given life to criminology's engagement with genocide because it provides the criteria for determining whether a state is ‘deviant’: whether, in the exercise of power, the state is conforming to, or flouting human rights. So, the starting point for the curious has to be this: why has criminology come so late to the crime of genocide? Why now? And to what effect? A deep analysis of these important questions lies beyond the parameters of this short response piece, but I will provide a brief, suggestive rather than definitive, excursion into them.