When States Try Their Own: A Reductive Approach to State Criminality

• In Event: Euroc - State Crime

Abstract

This paper examines the potential of reductive models of state criminality, transcending the dichotomy between law's exclusionary or inclusionary drives. While traditional approaches to state criminality have expanded definitions of crime to account for injustices the state does not consider violations of its law, this research takes a different path by focusing on what I term "Trials of Repudiated Violence."

Based on the case of Israel/Palestine, I analyze trials that adjudicate acts of physical violence committed by Israeli state security agents against Palestinians as those the state has long considered its emblematic enemies. By tackling state criminality through moments the state formally acknowledges as violations of its laws, the paradigm of trials of repudiated violence stresses that beyond legal charges, sentences, and national contexts, attention to these elements allows capturing the event at the heart of formal state accountability processes. The focus on physical violence stems from the understanding that it is this kind of violence which challenges the sovereign right to kill and as such can shed light on other forms of state criminality.

I argue that to understand state criminality better, we must begin by examining what constitutes rarity—trials of state security agents that enable focusing on states' conditions of possibility—rather than producing all-encompassing models. The reductive approach represents a necessary first stage, allowing us to see how legal categories erase the event's political meaning for specific groups, before examining what is left out.

The paper analyzes trial proceedings, legal documents, and contextual materials related to cases where Israeli security forces faced prosecution. This empirically informed theoretical model's effectiveness lies in its double movement: turning inwards to specific form of state criminaility, then outwards to offer a more nuanced analysis of the logic of state criminality.

Author

• Revital Madar, European University Institute