Examines illicit trade and the difficulties of establishing international cooperation against it, including how government interests differ, criminal groups involvement, and how legitimate players may seek to hinder regulatory efforts.

Though mankind has traded tangible goods for millennia, recent technology has changed the fundamentals of trade, in both legitimate and illegal economies. In the past three decades, the most advanced forms of illicit trade have broken with all historical precedents and, as Dark Commerce shows, now operate as if on steroids, tied to computers and social media. In this new world of illicit commerce, which benefits states and diverse participants, trade is impersonal and anonymized, and vast profits are made in short periods with limited accountability to sellers, intermediaries, and purchasers. Louise Shelley examines how new technology, communications, and globalization fuel the exponential growth of dangerous forms of illegal trade--the markets for narcotics and child pornography online, the escalation of sex trafficking through web advertisements, and the sale of endangered species for which revenues total in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The illicit economy exacerbates many of the world's destabilizing phenomena: the perpetuation of conflicts, the proliferation of arms and weapons of mass destruction, and environmental degradation and extinction. Shelley explores illicit trade in tangible goods--drugs, human beings, arms, wildlife and timber, fish, antiquities, and ubiquitous counterfeits--and contrasts this with the damaging trade in cyberspace, where intangible commodities cost consumers and organizations billions as they lose identities, bank accounts, access to computer data, and intellectual property.

This engaging new textbook presents a comprehensive, nuanced and multidimensional perspective on global crime and its governance. As global criminal activity becomes increasingly sophisticated and elusive, so the means to counter it must adapt. Every day our news media is dominated by incidents that span countries and continents, often presented as an all-encompassing threat orchestrated by societal outsiders. If not in the news, global crime is sensationalised in our film and television industry, and it can be difficult to gain a true understanding of what global crime is and how it is combated. Featuring the latest research and informed by a wide range of theoretical perspectives, this text masterfully makes sense of a range of issues from global environmental crime and human trafficking, to the global trade in drugs and cybercrime. This pathbreaking text analyses why global crime is important, the obstacles faced in countering it and accounts for the difficulties in securing cooperation across states. Comprehensive and accessible, this authoritative textbook is the perfect companion for students and scholars who are interested in the still evolving issue of international relations and global politics.

Plunder examines the dark side of the Rule of Law and explores how it has been used as a powerful political weapon by Western countries in order to legitimize plunder – the practice of violent extraction by stronger political actors victimizing weaker ones. Challenges traditionally held beliefs in the sanctity of the Rule of Law by exposing its dark side Examines the Rule of Law's relationship with 'plunder' – the practice of violent extraction by stronger political actors victimizing weaker ones – in the service of Western cultural and economic domination Provides global examples of plunder: of oil in Iraq; of ideas in the form of Western patents and intellectual property rights imposed on weaker peoples; and of liberty in the United States Dares to ask the paradoxical question – is the Rule of Law itself illegal?