Lawrence Douglas Discusses New Book ‘The Criminal State’

On Wednesday, Oct. 14, James J. Grosfeld Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought Lawrence Douglas and Amherst College Trustee Stephen I. Vladeck ’01 discussed Douglas’s book, “The Criminal State: War, Atrocity, and the Dream of International Justice,” published in April 2026. The talk occurred on a Zoom webinar with roughly 250 people in attendance. The webinar was recorded and can be accessed with an Amherst College email.

Douglas has been teaching at Amherst since 1990. He has authored eight books and is a recent Guggenheim Fellow. Vladeck was elected to the Amherst College Board of Trustees in 2025. He is also a Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, has written a New York Times bestselling book, and is CNN’s Supreme Court analyst.

Throughout the discussion, Douglas articulated his book’s examination of the ambitious but incomplete endeavor to form a system of international justice with the ability to hold sovereign states accountable for aggression. He believes that international criminal justice is a necessary, yet weak aspiration. The system and its principles matter even though it cannot overcome the lofty power of sovereign states.

Douglas began the talk by defining the concept of a criminal state. He made a distinction between “a bad […] authoritarian regime” and a criminal state, in which “every apparatus of the government has been turned towards criminal ends.” In such a state, one cannot solve the issue through ordinary political processes (i.e., elections and courts) as they no longer provide meaningful checks on government actions. Douglas drew from a combination of political thinkers, including Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers, when making these distinctions.

The basis of the book and talk was the legacy of the Nuremberg trials that followed World War II. Douglas argued that international law made important, “heroic” advances in defining and condemning atrocities, but that it was “ultimately, [a] not entirely successful effort to […] subject sovereign power to the rule of law.” It was largely unsuccessful at preventing atrocities and aggression, as well as prosecuting the states and leaders responsible for them.

He emphasized that the principal charge of the Nuremberg trials was crimes against peace, rather than the Holocaust. In other words, the crime was waging an aggressive war. Despite this being the leading charge, Douglas claimed “this effort to really make aggression the centerpiece of this emerging system of international criminal law […] failed. It fell pretty early, and it fell pretty thoroughly.” 

This led Douglas to articulate his distinction between two contradictory approaches to international justice: Some parties approach international law with a focus on prohibiting the use of force between states, and others prioritize the prevention and punishment of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. Douglas noted that these approaches conflict with each other frequently.

Douglas, in both his conversation with Vladeck and in the Q&A section, applied these ideas to contemporary international conflicts. The discussion mainly looked at three ongoing conflicts: the Russo-Ukrainian War, the war in Gaza, and the Iran war. He noted how our system of international justice has failed to hold belligerents responsible: even as the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a permanent institution, it still cannot prosecute every international crime committed by every state leader.

Looking at the war between Russia and Ukraine, Douglas noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine exemplifies the crime of aggression, but the ICC is unable to prosecute him since its jurisdiction for the crime of aggression is limited to states that are parties to the Rome Statute. Russia is not a party to the statute; therefore, the ICC cannot prosecute. 

Speaking on Israel’s conduct in Gaza, Douglas explained that in his book he “characterize[d] what Israel has done as war crimes and crimes against humanity and not so much as genocide.” He cited his interpretations of the different definitions, providing a legal and analytical position. Douglas elaborated that while we can debate which definition is most accurate, “the very fact that those [legal] terms are being used” is “pretty powerful in […] performing what might look like a relatively weak response, namely, naming and shaming, but I do think that that has its own kind of real […] potency as well.” Simply put, legal categories can have consequences through public discussion and diplomatic relations, even when trials are unavailable.

Shifting his attention to the U.S., Douglas said he “would not characterize the [U.S.] as a criminal state,” though he does believe the nation is moving in a troubling direction in its use of force. Examples included U.S. military operations in Venezuela and Iran, as well as strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific that the government accused of being involved in drug smuggling. He questioned the legal justifications of these actions while also noting that these decisions have not gone without pushback. ”Elections still count in the [U.S.],” Douglas said, "[and] when you [look] to lower federal courts, it looks like they’ve been pretty [effective] [in] push[ing] back against the regime.” 

Douglas opted not to pass a definitive judgment on Iran regarding whether a state’s nuclear development could justify preemptive military attacks, instead speaking on the situation’s legal complexity in regards to international justice. However, he stated that given earlier nuclear agreements with Iran, it may not have served American national interests to attack Iran.

Vladeck concluded the talk, praising Douglas: “There’s so much value in […] your work,” and it “is really a reminder to us all of the value […] of just having the language and freedom to understand where these lines are.”