Stephen Cody
Associate Professor of Law
Stephen Cody is a former war crimes investigator, criminal prosecutor, and research director. His scholarship uses sociological theory and mixed methods research to understand criminal law, ocean governance, and threats to democracy. His recent publications focus on the dangers posed by legalistic autocrats in weak democracies, the regulation of deep sea mining beyond national jurisdictions, and criminal accountability for offshore environmental crimes. Cody has also published research on witness protection in international criminal trials, victims’ participation at the International Criminal Court, detainee abuse in military prisons, and the globalization of counterterrorism laws.
Cody’s scholarship has appeared in law reviews, peer reviewed journals, and books published by Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and University of California Press. With support from the National Science Foundation and The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Cody has conducted empirical studies in Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Kenya, the Netherlands, Uganda, and the United States.
Prior to joining the Suffolk Law faculty, Cody was a research director at Berkeley Law’s Human Rights Center, a Special Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California, and a law clerk in the criminal division of the District of Columbia Superior Court.
Raised in West Philadelphia, Cody graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Temple University, where he became a Truman Scholar. He also completed an M.Phil. in anthropology from Cambridge University as a Fulbright scholar. He earned his Ph.D. in sociology and his J.D. at the University of California, Berkeley.
Professor Cody teaches criminal law, criminal procedure, and ocean law. He has also taught courses on race and American law, international criminal law, research methods, and civil procedure.
This Article develops a blueprint for targeted forms of international criminalization that would deter offshore ecological destruction
ABSTRACT
Ocean protection is essential to avoid climate disaster. Phytoplankton, seaweeds, and sea grasses produce more than half of Earth’s oxygen— exceeding all terrestrial forests and plants combined—and absorb about ninety percent of the heat generated by rising emissions.
Yet oceans continue to be sites for brazen environmental law violations, from illegal fishing to toxic dumping. International criminal law has largely ignored these crimes, even when they amount to offshore environmental atrocities.
Meanwhile, legal structures for ocean governance tend to focus on regulatory compliance, self-policing, and dispute resolution, all of which have proved inadequate to protect oceans and coastal communities.
Without more global enforcement, environmental criminals will continue to operate with impunity at sea, even as their crimes exacerbate existential climate threats. Mare liberum or freedom of the seas has been a foundational principle of ocean law for centuries, dating back to the writings of Hugo Grotius.
But unconditional free seas are no longer defensible in the Anthropocene. The idea of free seas falsely presumes an inexhaustible ocean too vast to govern. Consequently, governance models based solely on the principle of free seas continue to legitimate careless national policies, destructive relations with marine ecosystems, and exploitation of vulnerable ocean environments.
Moving forward the international community must defend oceans as the heritage of all humankind and work together to protect seas against serious environmental harms.
This Article develops a blueprint for targeted forms of international criminalization that would deter offshore ecological destruction. It defends international prosecutions for a range of oceanic environmental crimes, including marine pollution, illegal fishing, and seabed destruction caused by illegal trawling or deep-sea mining.
Beyond theories of retribution or deterrence, global criminal prosecutions for environmental harms have expressive value during this time of climate crisis. International criminal convictions showcase humanity’s shared concern for ocean life and marine environments.
Criminalization of grave ocean harms would signal an ecocentric shift in international criminal law and aid multilateral efforts to protect marine environments and to promote new legal duties to nature.
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