Digital Harm and International Criminal Law

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Description

This book examines the promises and perils of pursuing accountability for digital harms under international criminal law (ICL).

Technology can be used as a new method of perpetrating existing international crimes, but it can also inflict novel harms that may only be adequately addressed by the creation of a new offence.

This book analyses how harm has been understood for core international crimes and how digital harms (such as online hate speech and disinformation, sharing footage of crimes online, mass surveillance, and online sexual violence) can be encompassed within definitions of those crimes. It considers theories of criminalisation to determine why digital harms should be criminalised, and explores relevant challenges, such as whether digital harms can meet the gravity threshold under ICL.

Further, obstacles to prosecuting digital harms at international criminal courts and tribunals (ICCTs) are considered, including jurisdiction, digital evidence concerns, and cooperation between ICCTs and States, private companies, and civil society. The book concludes with two case studies-the beheading of American journalist James Foley by ISIS, which was circulated online, and the digital surveillance used against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang, China-to illustrate how digital harms may be criminalised and prosecuted in practice.

Ultimately, the book argues that digital harms are like the harms traditionally encompassed by international crimes, and that these harms should be criminalised to provide justice to victims. As technology will continue to develop and serve as a vehicle for an increasing array of harms, accounting for digital harm should be an issue at the forefront of ICL.

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1. Introduction
2. What is Harm?
3. Harm and International Criminal Law
4. Digital Harm and International Criminal Law
5. Criminalising Digital Harm
6. Challenges of Criminalising and Adjudicating Digital Harm at International Criminal Courts and Tribunals
7. Case Studies of Digital Harm
8. Conclusion

Product details

Published	12 Nov 2026
Format	Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition	1st
Pages	272
ISBN	9781509997749
Imprint	Hart Publishing
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

Author

Sarah Zarmsky

Sarah Zarmsky is Lecturer at Queen’s University Be…

Sarah Zarmsky's Digital Harm and International Criminal Law is a landmark study that masterfully demonstrates why and how international criminal justice must evolve to confront harms inflicted through digital technologies. With its innovative typology, rigorous doctrinal analysis, and compelling case studies-from ISIS execution videos to mass surveillance in Xinjiang-this timely book provides an indispensable roadmap for scholars and practitioners seeking to ensure that ICL remains relevant and effective in the digital age.

Eliot Higgins, Bellingcat Productions BV
A novel and important book that unlocks our understanding of “digital harm” as international crimes. It constructs and defines the concept of digital crimes in the digital age underscoring the necessity of incorporating such crimes within the corpus of the international criminal law. From the digital crimes of ISIS to the mass surveillance of governments this book is essential reading for advancing international criminal accountability in the age of technology.
This book provides an indispensable contribution to identifying the nexus between crime and technology. It boldly confronts the multilayered harms of digital crime for victims and society alike. Zarmsky provides the essential roadmap for international criminalization of digital crimes a much-needed contribution to international scholarship and practice. Brava.

Professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin KC, Queen's University of Belfast
In this book, Sarah Zarmsky ably explains why digital harms need to be criminalized at the international level, and how this can and should be done. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in the application of international criminal law to digital technologies.

Professor Marko Milanovic, University of Reading
In Digital Harm and International Criminal Law, Sarah Zarmsky vaults international criminal law into the 21st century. With precision and originality, she confronts the profound challenges posed by digital harms, weaving together cutting-edge doctrinal, theoretical, and empirical insights. The result is a powerful and persuasive call to rethink how existing legal frameworks must evolve to meet emerging forms of harm. Essential reading for scholars and practitioners alike, this book is destined to help shape the future of international criminal law in the digital age.

Professor Alexa Koenig, Human Rights Center, UC Berkeley