QLLM 323-Session 3 – Natural disasters and forced eviction. | Study Guides, Projects, Research Law

Session 3 – Natural disasters and forced eviction

Green and Ward – State Crime – Chapter 1: Defining the state as criminal

If states define what is criminal, a state can only be criminal on those rare occasions

when it denounces itself for breaking its own laws.

There are a certain number of norms of conduct in international society that states

cannot violate with complete impunity. Some of these norms reflect principles of

justice that criminologists ought to support. State crime is therefore state

organisational deviance involving the violation of human rights.

The state

Tilley – modern nation-states often resemble protection rackets in that they demand

payment for protection against threats that are either imaginary or the consequences

of their own activities. They are coercive and self-seeking entrepreneurs but over a

certain period of time, states developed a durable interest in promoting the

accumulation of capital and accepted certain restrictions on their power as the price

of organising their populations efficiently.

All states share one crucial characteristic: they claim an entitlement to do things

which if anyone else did them would constitute violence and extortion. The use and

threat of physical violence remains central to state power in liberal democracies.

A state is legitimate to the extent that (i) it acts in accordance with the rules that it

sets for itself and its citizenry and (ii) those rules are seen to be justified by shared

beliefs. Hegemony – the process by which those beliefs that support the status quo

are instilled in the population at large so that they appear as matters of consensus

and common sense. It refers to an order in which a common social-moral language

is spoken, in which one concept of reality is dominant. If the hegemonic process is

successful, the specific interests of the dominant class will appear as universal

interests.

Civil societies occupy the space between large-scale bureaucratic structures of state

and economy on the one hand and the private sphere of family, friendship,

personality and intimacy on the other. The associations generate opinions and goals

with which they seek not only to influence public opinions and policies within existing

structures and rules, but sometimes also to alter the structures and rules

themselves. Civil societies can label state actions as deviant.

Organisational deviance

Deviance – behaviour which infringes a social rule.

Criminology – the study of deviance and social control.

An act is deviant where there is a social audience that (i) accepts a certain rule as a

standard of behaviour, (ii) interprets the act as violating the rule and (iii) is disposed

to apply significant sanctions to such violations.

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Session 3 – Natural disasters and forced eviction Green and Ward – State Crime – Chapter 1: Defining the state as criminal If states define what is criminal, a state can only be criminal on those rare occasions when it denounces itself for breaking its own laws. There are a certain number of norms of conduct in international society that states cannot violate with complete impunity. Some of these norms reflect principles of justice that criminologists ought to support. State crime is therefore state organisational deviance involving the violation of human rights. The state Tilley – modern nation-states often resemble protection rackets in that they demand payment for protection against threats that are either imaginary or the consequences of their own activities. They are coercive and self-seeking entrepreneurs but over a certain period of time, states developed a durable interest in promoting the accumulation of capital and accepted certain restrictions on their power as the price of organising their populations efficiently. All states share one crucial characteristic: they claim an entitlement to do things which if anyone else did them would constitute violence and extortion. The use and threat of physical violence remains central to state power in liberal democracies. A state is legitimate to the extent that (i) it acts in accordance with the rules that it sets for itself and its citizenry and (ii) those rules are seen to be justified by shared beliefs. Hegemony – the process by which those beliefs that support the status quo are instilled in the population at large so that they appear as matters of consensus and common sense. It refers to an order in which a common social-moral language is spoken, in which one concept of reality is dominant. If the hegemonic process is successful, the specific interests of the dominant class will appear as universal interests. Civil societies occupy the space between large-scale bureaucratic structures of state and economy on the one hand and the private sphere of family, friendship, personality and intimacy on the other. The associations generate opinions and goals with which they seek not only to influence public opinions and policies within existing structures and rules, but sometimes also to alter the structures and rules themselves. Civil societies can label state actions as deviant. Organisational deviance Deviance – behaviour which infringes a social rule. Criminology – the study of deviance and social control. An act is deviant where there is a social audience that (i) accepts a certain rule as a standard of behaviour, (ii) interprets the act as violating the rule and (iii) is disposed to apply significant sanctions to such violations.

In violations of human rights the relevant actors are state agencies, the relevant rules are rules of international law, domestic law and social morality as interpreted by audiences that include domestic and transnational civil society, international organisations, other states and other agencies within the offending state itself. Sanctions include legal punishments, censure or rebellion by the state’s own population, damage to the state’s domestic and international reputation, and diplomatic, economic and military sanctions from other states. The state comprises an ensemble of institutions which do not necessarily share a single set of interests and goals. Nevertheless, there are instances where the entire coercive apparatus of the state acts in a coordinated way. In times of economic and political crisis, the capitalist state does pursue an overarching goal of defending the existing order. The operative goals of a formal organisation are those that its members actually work together to achieve, which may or may not reflect the goals the organisation publicly proclaims. The organisation’s reaction to individual deviance will generally be the clearest indication of the deviant act’s perceived compatibility with organisational goals. Human Rights No state openly repudiates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Human beings have certain needs that are fundamental in the sense that without them, they cannot be effective purposive agents, able to pursue their chosen goals and participate in society. These include needs for freedom from physical restrain and pain and for food, clothing and shelter. They also include needs such as education and the opportunity to participate in cultural life and the political process. Everyone has a morally valid claim to human rights simply by virtue of being human. While a certain formal equality of rights is necessary to a capitalist society, such societies are not structures so as to meet the basic human needs of all their citizens. Stage agencies face real pressure from domestic and/or international society to conform with some, but not all, human rights norms. Green and Ward – State Crime – Chapter 4: Natural disaster as state crime The consequences and sometimes the precipitants of natural disasters are necessarily the products of social interactions with the environment. The state is directly culpable through a series of criminal actions and negligent practices. It is the presence of human life and organisation and their interaction with the physical world which introduces the concept of ‘vulnerability to calamity’. In order to understand ‘natural disasters’ within a state crime framework, the issues of population vulnerability, human rights, ecology, political economy and state formation will all be examined. Definition

cause of it was primarily a counter-insurgency campaign directed at the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front by the Ethiopian army and air force, and the zone of famine coincided with the zone of war. The military bombed markets, restricted trade and individual movements, forced populations to relocate and hijacked relief operations. There are three conditions which enhance a population’s vulnerability to natural disasters: poverty, corruption and political authoritarianism. Poverty – globalisation has contributed to the vulnerability of those in the poorest and most marginalised countries in the world. The growing networks of trade have not spread evenly across the globe. There has instead been a process of regionalisation centred around North America, Europe and SE Asia marginalising Africa, South and Central Asia and Latin America. The impact of US banana companies in collusion with regional governments has significantly increased the vulnerability of the poor in Central America. Extensive deforestation for the development of roads and railways to facilitate banana production and export forced local peasants to cheaper land. Clearing forests lead to severe soil erosion and ultimately to flooding and landslides. Corruption – Indonesia – the 1997-8 forest fires were started by timber and palm oil plantation owners who deliberately and illegally cleared land with fire to develop their plantations. Systemic corruption tends to occur in societies where political life is characterised by clientelism, patrimonialism and informal exchange relationships. Turkey earthquake in 1999 – clientelistic practices systematically undermines the possibility of compliance with and enforcement of existing building standards and regulations. In the aftermath of this earthquake, responsibility was placed on individual building developers and contractors who cut corners, used poor-quality building materials, failed to employ soil and other safety checks and ignored earthquake proofing regulations. But Green and colleagues found that a combination of political, legal and human rights abuse was the most significant factor contributing to the destruction of the region. Illegal building and housing have flourished as a direct result of state policy and practice in Turkey. Construction amnesty – this gives a green light to developers, contractors and owner-occupiers to continue to build and extend dwellings without regard for building design, soil suitability or earthquake regulations. Authoritarianism and repression – the devastation of natural disasters is not simply the result of underdevelopment, but the weakness of civil society under repressive political arrangements. The absence of civil society correlates with an absence of or weak democratic processes. There must be administrative capacity to deliver strategies of prevention, mitigation and relief and an open public forum where information, publicity and debate is readily accessible. The absence of a strong civil society means that authoritarian states are also more likely to attempt to conceal evidence of state deviance. E.g. the number of deaths during the 1999 Turkish earthquake. The discrepancy between the official and

unofficial earthquake figures and the government’s refusal to issue a missing list strongly suggests that the Turkish state reduced the number of dead in order to reduce the impact of its incompetence and the scale of its own corrupt practices. Chinese famine 1958-61 – at least 30 million people died from starvation. There was a conspiracy of silence about hunger and famine to conceal the crimes of the state. Starvation was forbidden as a documented cause of death on death certificates and doctors were forbidden to tell patients that they were starving. The famine was not about drought but rather about the result of official seeking to create the illusion of success in implementing the unrealistic decrees of Mao’s regime.

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