Genocide, State Crime, and the Law ─ In the Name of the State

This interesting work on the socio-political history of law examines the role of law in genocide and explores the ways in which legal structures have been implicitly and explicitly involved with both the perpetration and redress of crimes against humanity. The work focuses on five historical examples: the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the Khmer Rouge, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and the former Yugoslavia, and presents a discussion of how law and legal structures provided the basis and cover for crimes, and how post-conflict prosecutions and other legal remedies played a role in the rebuilding and rehabilitation of these nations. Balint is a professor of socio-legal studies at the University of Melbourne. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Jennifer Balint is Lecturer in Socio-Legal Studies at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia. Her research interests lie primarily in the area of access to justice and the constitutive role of law, with a focus on genocide and other forms of state crime.