The project of a global and international constitutional order, stipulated in the aftermath of the Second World War, is currently being challenged not only by the re-emergence of aggressive forms of populist nationalism; but, also, by the massive human rights violations caused by economic globalization. In the face of the millions of deaths each year due to hunger, thirst, and untreated diseases, as well as the hundreds of thousands of people forced to flee from war, poverty, and environmental devastation caused by the policies of the strongest countries, the author believes that it is necessary to update the theoretical categories with which we interpret reality. He therefore proposes to introduce the notion of «systemic crime» to designate violations of peoples’ rights implemented by the uncontrolled exercise of global powers —political, economic, and financial— and by the anarchic
development of capitalism. The «systemic crimes», consisting on mass violations of constitutionally established human rights, are certainly attributable to the phenomenology of the legal crime. However, they are not criminal offenses, since they lack all the elements that constitute a criminal type. Their distinctive traits are two: the indeterminate and indeterminable nature of both the action and the event, usually catastrophic; and the indeterminate and multi-subjective nature of both their authors and their victims. These are usually inflicted upon whole peoples or, in some cases, upon humanity. The enormity of these crimes demands that criminology,
legal science, political debate, and even international institutions figure out a way to surpass the tendency to identify as illegal only actions justiciable by criminal courts. Instead, these disciplines should commit to denouncing the political and moral responsibilities of those who could prevent or at least reduce the execution of «systemic crimes» through the projection and introduction of adequate guarantees of international law.