Abstract

This piece sheds analytical light on how when the human right of access to justice is impaired, private actors will later substitute away from the court system and seeks private dispute resolution mechanisms offered by armed groups generating violence through economic crimes. In this context, the analysis extends previous findings by providing evidence for the first time in the literature that greater diversification of economic crimes come hand in hand with more frequent provisions of "dispute resolution mechanisms" supplied by armed groups engaged in the trafficking of legal and illegal goods and services through illegal means. One of the main policy implications of this piece is that a greater compliance with the human right to access justice through a more effective judiciary represents not just a way to enhance punitive/deterrence state capacity against armed criminal enterprises but also a policy to reduce the social sphere used by armed groups as a protection strategy within the most deprived segments of the population.