This article uses a comparative history method to examine criminal state secrecy in closed authoritarian societies and open democratic societies. Focusing on how government secrecy is employed to conceal atrocity crimes, this article compares the legal, policy, and normative tools that state actors use to hide inhumane conduct and escape accountability for serious violations of international law. Observed outcomes for atrocity whistleblowers and the international criminal justice process are also examined. In describing the deleterious impact that secrecy can have for international justice efforts, this article proposes that the invocation of “national security” in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide cases is in foundational tension with species-level international security concerns.
This article focuses on the Military Reaction Force (MRF), a plain-clothes, undercover British Army unit accused of shooting unarmed civilians in the North of Ireland in the early 1970s. Designed as a counter-gang, the MRF mounted false-flag or deniable operations allegedly to defeat the IRA. However, this article points to a deliberate strategy of extra-judicial state killings by MRF units, systematically planned across brigade areas, forming a decisive blueprint for later undercover units, all underscored by state-organized denial. Combining documentary analysis and activist criminology, this article offers a systematic exposition of the MRF, investigating its inception, structure, and rationale and how it shaped the conflict through its involvement in multiple deaths, including MRF state agents. The author concludes by calling for the disclosure of all intelligence files on MRF operations via a statutory independent inquiry.
