The relevance and application of empirical research methods to the study of international crimes

© Cambridge University Press 2014. The international criminalization of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes has been followed by a vast amount of published work on the legal instruments and institutions dealing with such crimes and the procedural aspects of their prosecution at national and international level. Most of the relevant work relies on secondary data analysis rather than the collection of primary data and the use of criminological research methods. In fact, the discipline of criminology has traditionally excluded violations of international criminal law from its scope, restricting itself to common crime and violence such as homicide, gang crime, domestic violence and other types of ordinary (national) criminal activity. It is only recently that criminologists have gradually started paying attention to international crimes and calling for the development of a new sub-branch of criminological research, a so-called international criminology, with the aim of examining crime and justice beyond national boundaries. The examination of international crimes through criminological lenses has resulted in broadening the horizons of the research methods employed in order to fully appreciate the nature of international crimes. This is evident in the various studies conducted to address – on a quantitative level – the prevalence of international crimes, the etiology of offending at a micro and macro level, the impact of the offence on the victim and the legal reaction to international criminality. This chapter focuses on the application of criminological empirical research methods to the study of international crimes by providing insights into the different ways in which data can be collected for research thereto. It is not the aim of the chapter to produce a full account of the various social science research methods but only to identify particular problems potentially encountered by anyone conducting research on international crimes, especially as this relates to data collection for qualitative or quantitative analysis. The chapter is divided into two principal sections. The first highlights the relevance of the application of criminological research methods to the study of international crimes and gross violations of human rights and reinforces the arguments for the inclusion of the notion of international crimes within the realm of empirical research. The second demonstrates the practical application of quantitative and qualitative research methods in the study of international crimes and indicates the areas where empirical research is relevant.