Collaboration with an enemy during an armed conflict is as old as warfare itself. As a sociopolitical phenomenon it is hard to define, capture and deal with. In essence, collaboration entails assisting the enemy, in the sense that civilians or combatants belonging to one party to the conflict assist the opposing side by, for example, providing information, helping in administration of occupied territories or engaging in propaganda. However, boundaries of collaboration as a type of criminal behavior, as well as its distinction from other forms of interaction with the enemy, pose a serious legal issue that is challenging to resolve. Ever since the beginning of the Russian–Ukrainian war in 2014, collaboration with the Russian occupying forces has been a widespread social phenomenon. Ukraine criminalized collaboration only after the full-scale invasion of Russian troops in 2022. By mapping the current legal landscape of such criminalization and its implementation by the criminal justice system, this article analyses the contentious boundaries of this prohibition and questionable practices of its enforcement. Using the case study of Ukraine, it aims to open a discussion on the effectiveness of criminalization and prosecution of collaborators as the means to protect national security during warfare.

This Special Issue examines the multifaceted relationship between war and crime through the lens of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war, addressing a longstanding gap in criminological engagement with armed conflict. While international crimes have drawn increasing scholarly attention, the broader criminogenic effects of war: on social order, 'ordinary' crime, legal norms, and institutional responses, remain underexplored. The contributions examine how conflict reshapes violence, norms, and illicit markets; how states expand criminal law during wartime; and how transnational criminality and accountability challenges evolve under geopolitical rupture. Bringing together Ukrainian and international scholars, the issue foregrounds domestic expertise, and advances a more inclusive and interdisciplinary criminology of war, while also highlighting the ethical, methodological, and personal challenges of conducting research during an ongoing war. Collectively, the studies demonstrate the need for a broader criminological perspective capable of capturing the wide-ranging and enduring impact of war on crime, justice, and social order.

How do societies and families in post-atrocity settings shape the next generation's sense of justice for mass crimes? In Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the legacies of war remain deeply embedded in social and political life, this study examines the intergenerational transmission of punitive attitudes. Using survey data from 640 parent-child pairs, we analyze how sentencing preferences shift across generations in response to variations in perpetrator rank, apology, and trial location. Our findings reveal a modest but significant correlation between parental and child attitudes,with an unexpected trend: children of parents who directly suffered war-related harm express less punitive attitudes than those whose parents did not. These results challenge assumptions about victimization and retribution, offering new insights into how justice perceptions evolve in post-conflict societies. By shedding light on the role of familial memory in shaping attitudes toward punishment for atrocity crimes, this study deepens our understanding of justice perceptions in post-conflict societies, offering insights relevant to transitional justice debates and efforts to prevent cycles of violence.

PurposeThis study aims to examine cross-cultural dynamics between legal professionals and witnesses during testimony provided at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a thematic analysis using transcripts from four different types of witnesses (overview, crime-base, expert and insider) across 13 cases, comprising 13,755 pages of transcripts in total.FindingsThe analysis revealed more cross-cultural challenges in witness responses than in questioning by attorneys. The authors also found that defense attorneys used closed questions more frequently, while prosecution attorneys preferred open-ended questions.Originality/valueThis is the first empirical study to examine question and answer dynamics within witness transcripts from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda while focusing on potential cultural differences. The findings stress the importance of cultural sensitivity in questioning of witnesses by legal professionals.

Abstract Punitive practices are highly revealing of a society’s social fabric, normative order, and power structure. However, the social sciences and humanities have hitherto studied punishment mostly in the context of the nation-state by examining how people, organizations, and legal institutions punish individual offenders within national boundaries. In contrast, this chapter examines punitive practices of international society, where punitive practices have assumed three main forms: sanctions, international courts and tribunals, and the punitive use of armed force. A punitive lens on international affairs contributes to the understanding of international society in three ways: It identifies which norms and values are at the core of the international order and its conception of justice, it helps identify structures of power and authority in international society, and an analysis of the penal philosophies that buttress the punitive enforcement of norms points to the potential for conflict and cooperation in international society.

Abstract Chapter 2 provides a brief survey of the forty years of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia focusing on the Czechoslovak secret police, to wit, the Státní bezpečnost (StB). This chapter identifies the StB as among the principal tools of state repression and presents StB officers as securocrats. This chapter distils aggregated findings on the background, mission, and operations of the StB. It unwraps the StB’s use of informers. It outlines the formalities and steps in the creation and dissolution of cooperation agreements between informers and StB officers. Considerable details are proffered on the various categories of informers, methods of recruitment and management, and how the StB as an agency adapted over time to changing circumstances. This chapter also reassesses the dominant post-Communist revisionist narrative that affirms the putative dissonance between state and society in the Communist years and inflates the prevalence of resistance over the actuality of complicity.

Abstract Chapter 4 features ‘up close’ the file-stories of six actual informers. These gripping, high-resolution narratives demonstrate the complexities of the relationships between state and society in Communist Czechoslovakia. They reveal the social engineering effects of the state and the agentic contributory role of individuals. Each file-story showcases a deeply personal cocktail of emotions that pulled informers towards and pushed informers away from the StB and vivifies how these sentiments changed and morphed over time. In the Czechoslovak context, this granular and detailed portrayal unsettles assumptions of the uniformity of informer motivations which largely infuse transitional justice mechanisms and historical narratives.

This study investigates intergenerational resemblance (i.e., intergenerational transmission) in attitudes toward atrocity crime punishment in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a post-conflict society still grappling with the legacy of war. Using a vignette study, we explored (dis-)continuities in punitive attitudes towards atrocity crimes between parents who experienced the war and their children, who have no direct experience of these events. Data were collected from a convenience sample. The distributed vignettes focused on preferred sentence length in a constructed atrocity crime scenario with variations in perpetrator rank, trial location, and apology. We also collected respondents' demographic data, including age, sex, ethnicity, familial roles, and personal conflict experiences. The study found a modest yet consistent correlation between parents' and children's punitive attitudes, with notable qualitative differences in their reasoning. These findings contribute to understanding the nuances of intergenerational resemblance in punitiveness in post-conflict settings, highlighting the need for broader assessments to fully grasp the of war and crimes on societal attitudes.

Abstract Chapter 6 offers normative takeaways for transitional justice in the Czech Republic. Following 1989, informers were cast as dangers to the nascent liberal democracy. This scapegoating, unjustified in light of what had actually motivated informers, might have provided a sense of comfort to many Czechs. Chapter 6 interrogates this comfort and unpacks its problematic aspects. Additionally, it questions the putative virtues of transparency and explores cruelties that inhere in opening the StB files to the public in a largely unadulterated fashion. This chapter then pivots from the Czech experience to broader prescriptive questions about the place of informers in transitional justice. Encouraging goals of rehabilitation, reconciliation, and reintegration in the case of everyday informers—rather than ostracism and rejection—the chapter proposes a heuristic that could guide transitional justice mechanisms in how they approach informers. This heuristic aims to promote dignity and render transitional justice more transformative.

Ova studija istražuje međugeneracijsku sličnost (tj. međugeneracijski prijenos) u stavovima prema kažnjavanju ratnih zločina u Bosni i Hercegovini, postkonfliktnom društvu koje se još bori s naslijeđem rata. Koristeći vinjetnu studiju, istraženi su (dis)kontinuiteti o stavovima prema kažnjavanju ratnih zločina između roditelja, koji su iskusili rat, i njihove djece, koja nemaju izravnog iskustva s tim događajima. Podaci su prikupljeni iz prigodnog uzorka. Distribuirane vinjete bile su usredotočene na željenu duljinu kazne u scenariju iskonstruiranog zločina s varijacijama u rangu počinitelja, mjestu suđenja i isprikama. Također, prikupljeni su demografski podaci ispitanika, uključujući dob, spol, etničku pripadnost, obiteljske uloge i osobna iskustva sukoba. Studija je otkrila skromnu, ali dosljednu korelaciju između stavova prema kažnjavanju roditelja i djece, s primjetnim kvalitativnim razlikama u njihovu razmišljanju. Ovi nalazi pridonose razumijevanju nijansi međugeneracijske sličnosti u stavovima prema kažnjavanju u post[1]konfliktnim okruženjima, ističući potrebu za širim procjenama kako bi se u potpunosti shvatili dugoročni učinci rata i zločina na društvene stavove

Abstract Based on informer file-stories, Chapter 5 offers a number of key observations about the social practice of informing in Communist Czechoslovakia. Concepts such as intimacy, power, social navigation, strategy, tactics, and exchange contour the relationship between StB officers and ‘their’ informers. Informing blurs the line between the political and the personal. Informers occupy liminal spaces between victims and victimizers. Many informers were blackmailed into informing but many turned to the StB to leverage their private wants and actualize their immediate needs. Chapter 5 examines the role of emotions as catalysing and then sustaining these interactive dimensions. Four emotions in particular stand out: fear, resentment, desire, and allegiance. This chapter invokes the file-stories to illustrate these emotions in the life stories of informers, while also noting that StB officers, as well, expressed sentiments such as solicitude and disappointment during their interactions with ‘their’ informers.

Abstract Chapter 3 unwraps the Czech Republic’s socio-legal reckoning with the repressive past, notably in the case of informers. This chapter elucidates transitional justice laws and practices implemented in Czechoslovakia after the fall of the Communist regime in 1989, as well as in the Czech Republic after the country’s dissolution in 1993. Transitional justice measures included proclamations, prosecutions, lustration, opening of StB archives, rehabilitation, property restitution, architectural remodelling, monument building, and creation of memory institutes. Although, taken as a whole, these transitional methods were not prima facie retributive— after all, there were hardly any criminal trials—they were still starkly condemnatory when it came to informers. Informers were cast as dangerous loyalists to the Communist regime and its ideology. Transitional justice stigmatized informers instead of pursuing reconciliatory goals. Political expediency was key in this regard, in particular, to bolster the legitimacy of the new liberal successor regime.

Informers in the service of state secret police collaborate with authorities and thus contribute to the power of repressive regimes. Through a case-study of Communist Czechoslovakia (1945-1989)-and drawing from secret police archives- this article presents selected stories of informers who in one way or another also `resisted' collaboration with the Czechoslovak State Security (StB). By doing so, we try to further complexify the notions of 'everyday resistance, on the one hand, and `collaboration' on the other. We demonstrate that resistant acts, similar to collaborative acts, can be apolitically devoid of ideology, highly idiosyncratic, and motivated by private drivers. Informing can be a tool of social navigation-namely, making the most out of one's circumstances-in repressive times. Hence, resisting while informing also can be approached as a method for an individual to maximize opportunities within the overlapping incentives-both public and private, personal and professional-that contour decision-making and social action in repressive regimes.

Abstract Chapter 7 concludes by recapping what we have discovered over the course of our journey to the file-stories of Communist Czechoslovakia. It also uncorks new areas for scholarly inquiry. Based on existing literature and our analysis of the file-stories, Chapter 7 examines motivational similarities between StB informers in repressive times and generic informers in so-called liberal states who assist police in ordinary criminal investigations and public authorities with regulatory compliance. This chapter introduces the concept of ‘just or unjust informing’ to ruminate upon public perceptions of individuals who help authorities in liberal states enforce laws (including COVID lockdowns and abortion restrictions) by informing on individuals who ‘break the rules’. This, then, returns the book full-circle to the complexity of informing, the panoply of the various ‘kinds’ of informing, and the selectivity and conditionality of public derision. Informers indeed have been, are, and will be ‘here, there, and everywhere’. Informers are ubiquitous. They are essential for any state—however virtuous or venal—to maintain authority. On a preliminary note, carry-overs and parallels seem to emerge across repressive and liberal contexts.

Abstract Informers contribute to the power of repressive regimes. While informers may themselves be victims, and are enlisted by the state, their actions cause other individuals to suffer significant harm. Informers, then, are central to the proliferation of endemic human rights abuses. Through a case study of Communist Czechoslovakia (1945–1989)—and drawing from secret police archives, oral histories, and a broad gamut of secondary sources—this book unearths what fuels informers to speak to authorities in repressive times and considers how transitional justice should approach informers once repression ends and a successor regime emerges. This book unravels the complex drivers behind informing and the dynamics of societal reactions to informing. It explores the agency of both informers and secret police officers. By presenting informers ‘up close’, and the relationships between informers and secret police officers in high resolution, this book centres the role of emotions in informer motivations and underscores the value of dignity in transitional reconstruction. This book also leverages research from informing in authoritarian states to improve our understanding of informing in so-called liberal democratic states which, after all, also rely on informers to maintain law and preserve order.

The testimonies of insider witnesses are often key to prosecutions of international crimes, despite significant trustworthiness concerns. However, we know little about the practice of judicial assessments of insider testimonies, that is, which factors the judges consider relevant to relying on insider testimony. With this article, we set out to provide a comprehensive, explorative examination of the insider witness assessment factors used by the trial judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court in 1996–2019. By using multiple correspondence analysis, we show that the factors related to insider witness assessment outcomes are generally similar across the tribunals and tend to focus on the contents of the testimonies, with less attention given to credibility or competence concerns. This research constitutes the first systematic quantitative analysis and cross-institutional comparison of insider witness assessment practice at an international level.

The peace agreement signed by the Colombian government and the FARC has an innovative sanctioning regime which, based on a restorative approach, offers non-custodial sanctions as a less punitive form of punishment for international crimes. However, given their leniency, these 'special sanctions' have caused controversy. Based on qualitative interviews, this study explores the perceptions of different stakeholders concerning various issues related to the special sanctions' nature, goals, processes, (envisioned) outcomes and challenges. Our findings reveal that most participants perceive these sanctions as a tool that can modestly help repair the damage done, reintegrate (certain) offenders into society, and promote coexistence. Only a limited number of respondents saw these sanctions as punishment. For several participants, the special sanctions may be an alternative accountability measure to prison. However, this seems to depend on meeting certain preconditions, victims' participation, the type of crime and the offender's rank and affiliation.