Essay Example on International Crime vs. Transnational Crime: What's the Difference?

International crime is the definition of core crimes like war crimes, genocide, aggression and crimes against humanity. These crimes in most countries result in imprisonment when an individual is found guilty if getting involved. The international crime involves may or may not be committed involving multiple nations. On the other hand, transnational crime is the definition of criminal activities which involves more than one nation through the parties responsible. Therefore, the difference between international and national crime is the involvement of more than one country. When a crime is committed through multiple countries, then that qualifies it as a transnational crime. International crimes are those crimes that are of concern internationally; because of the effects that they have on the welfare of people. For example, there is so much dignity that is attached to human life. Therefore, any crime that is against humanity causes concern internationally, which causes it to be an international crime in nature.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Various criminal cases involve one or more countries, which necessitate them having the same treatment of crimes. For example, when there is a crime committed in concoction by two people from different countries, there may be a need for the two judicial systems to cooperate. In that way, they might find common ground regarding how they should treat the case. That necessitates uniformity in their criminal justice systems; to streamline finding a solution to more similar cases that may occur in the future. That brings about the issue of judicial borrowing between nations. There are cases where there has been a need for nations to have similar criminal justice systems because of the complexities brought about by previous differences (Andrade, 2016). Therefore, one country borrows an idea about how to determine a case from another country's criminal justice system. That leads to a better-streamlined transnational crime system, which involves the two nations or others that may have to deal with similar cases.

In this case, there is an example of a country that borrowed another country's criminal justice system structure. That was meant to streamline operations with the other country, as well as others associated with it in the administration of justice. The underlying issue is the uniform application of criminal justice across various jurisdictions, which would enhance cooperation when solving transnational crimes. The two countries, in this case, are Spain and Estonia. Estonia has had a slow development of its judicial system as compared to Spain. Spain gained independence in 1978, while Estonia gained its independence in 1991. Therefore, Spain had a long time to develop its judicial system to streamline it with other judicial systems. On the other side, Estonia has had less time; therefore, it has had to engage in efforts to streamline its judicial system with that of other nations.

The issue of interest in the judicial borrowing, in this case, is that of the penal code used in Estonia and Spain. The two countries are members of the European Union, which means they collaborate in many issues with concern the law. Given the fact that there were considerable differences between the penal codes of the two nations and others, there would have been challenges when dealing with transnational crime. Therefore, there was a need for Estonia to streamline its penal code with that of Spain. In the long run, there would be streamlining of Estonia'sEstonia's penal code with the other members of the European Union (Laffranque, 2008). In that way, there would be better collaboration when dealing with transnational crime. The penal code in Estonia was streamlined with that of other nations because it was too strict, and its intention was not rehabilitation, rather punishment. That was inconsistent with the penal code of other members of the European Union. In most cases, there would have been appeals, which would be to reduce the punishment for some crimes. An example of such a situation is the criminal case against S. Brusilov, where the penal code was challenged. Therefore, Estonia had to borrow from the Spanish penal code.

Various values form the basis of the United States criminal justice system. It is on their basis that the nature of the justice system is defined. First, there is a rehabilitation perspective, where the system is meant to make people better through its core principles. Moreover, there is due process, where being equitable and fair is a major motivation. Equal justice is the other value, where there is required to be fairness in the administration of justice. That is based on the core principles of the justice system that is used in the United States. Lastly, there is the crime control perspective, where there is the goal of limiting the occurrence of crime within the United States' borders and other nations. However, there are slight differences in the application of the values across different nations. That necessitated uniformity of the justice systems to take care of the contracting aspects. That has been done through strategies, for example, between the European Union and the United States to combat transnational organized crime (Ruyver, 2002). That has worked to streamline the administration of justice involving transnational crimes.

Conclusion

International and transnational crimes occur among nations, whereby individuals cooperate to commit crimes across borders. That leads to complexities when solving the issues because different penal codes are used in different nations. In that case, there is the necessity of countries cooperating to find common ground when dealing with the crimes. An example is the judicial borrowing between Estonia and Spain, which streamlined criminal law procedures between the two countries and the European Union. There are always ongoing efforts between nations and international bodies to ensure the criminal justice system has similarities. That makes it easier for solving cases that involve nations that had different criminal justice systems. In the long run, crime is combated through better cooperation among different nations, as shown.

References

Andrade Neto, J. (2016). The normativity of judicial borrowings: a blind spot in judicial decision-making studies. Revista Direito e Práxis, Rio de Janeiro, 7(15), 113-149. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2839650

Laffranque, J. J. (2008). Judicial Borrowing: International & Comparative Law as Nonbinding Tools of Domestic Legal Adjudication with Particular Reference to Estonia. The International Lawyer, 1287-1302. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40708044

Ruyver, B. (2002). Strategies of the EU and the US in Combating Transnational Organized Crime. Maklu. https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=O94gPcnKQAwC&pg=PA419&lpg=PA419&dq=US+penal+code+vs+estonia&source=bl&ots=ojuihq2ngx&sig=ACfU3U3JV5F_YAHN9yQ114vAl_t7qpzYrQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj8g4rnibbqAhVC6uAKHa5rBQIQ6AEwA3oECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=US%20penal%20code%20vs%20estonia&f=false