Organized planetary crime

an essay

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22922062

Keywords:

Anthropocene, organized planetary crime, green criminology, zemiology, environmental criminal law

Abstract

This essay proposes the concept of Organized Planetary Crime (OPC) as an instrument for interrupting the legal, criminological, and political-scientific categories that organize the visibility of harm in the Anthropocene. OPC is not a new criminal offence, but a reflexive concept that destabilizes the conditions of recognition of wrongdoing. Its three components (planetary, crime, and organized) function as concepts of interruption that disturb, respectively, the distinctions between local and Earth-system-level relevance, between criminalized wrongdoing and normalized harm, and between criminal organization and harm infrastructure. The essay contrasts two definitions of OPC: a narrow, legally oriented one, and a broader critical one that exposes the role of legal forms in organizing and legitimizing planetary harm. It is argued that the contrast between these definitions is methodologically more valuable than their premature synthesis.

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Author Biographies

Christoph Burchard, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Alemanha

Professor de Direito Penal, Direito Processual Penal, Direito Penal Internacional e Europeu, Direito Comparado e Teoria do Direito (Dr. iur., Universität Passau, 2007; LL.M., New York University School of Law, 2003; Habilitation, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 2015). Professor titular da Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main. Fundador e diretor do Center for Critical Computational Studies (C3S). Principal Investigator do Forschungsverbund ‘Normative Ordnungen’.

João Victor Gianecchini (Translator), Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Alemanha

Doutorando em Direito Penal na Goethe Universität, Frankfurt.

Me. Vitor de Souza Ishikawa (Translator), Universidade de São Paulo, USP, Brasil

Doutorando em Direito Penal na Universidade de São Paulo.

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Published

2026-09-29

How to Cite

BURCHARD, Christoph; GIANECCHINI, João Victor; ISHIKAWA, Vitor de Souza. Organized planetary crime: an essay. Boletim IBCCRIM, São Paulo, v. 34, n. 407, p. 19–23, 2026. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22922062. Disponível em: https://publicacoes.ibccrim.org.br/index.php/boletim_1993/article/view/3614. Acesso em: 30 sep. 2026.

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