To promote understanding of, and dialogue about, criminal justice responses to crimes around the world, including cybercrime; trafficking in persons; justice responses to migrants and asylum seekers; conflicts, aggression, and war crimes; law enforcement in developing democracies; and the use of judicial and non-judicial executions around the world.
Criminology and criminal justice, have, until recently primarily been conceived of as local, or at least national institutions. There is a reason for this geographical focus; criminal law, for the most part, is bounded by national territory. Yet, as all parts of our lives are increasingly shaped by mass migration and globalisation, from the food we eat, to the people who live on our street, our finances, our friends, what we read, where we travel, there is no reason to imagine that criminal justice would be unaffected. Not only are some crimes, like terrorism, cybercrime, trafficking, or drug offences global, but criminal justice agents and institutions increasingly operate across borders or have an impact far away. Criminal justice, under these circumstances, has not only expanded but changed its effect and, at least in part, its justification.
In June 2016, as part of our 50th anniversary celebrations, the Centre launched a new Global Criminal Justice Hub to promote collaborative exchanges with universities around the world. In 2018 we held the inaugural Global Criminal Justice Early Career Conference, with students from Monash and Hong Kong University and joined the Monash University intensive writing programme at Prato, which offers our DPhil students the opportunity to prepare an article for publication. In 2019 we hosted our first Global Criminal justice hub visiting fellow, Ricky Gunawan, a human rights lawyer, co-founder and director of Indonesian legal aid organisation LBH Masyarakat. We also co-hosted a two day symposium on sentencing in Africa.
Please contact the Criminology team if you would like any further information, or if you would like to contribute to supporting these initiatives. We are particularly interested in fundraising for students from the global South to enable them to attend Oxford, either on our taught MSc course, or as research students on our DPhil programme.
