The large-scale terrorist attacks on 9/11 resulted in more attention being devoted to victims of terrorist acts. Discussions took place on how their needs could be best accommodated. The Madrid bombings in March 2004 gave further impetus to this process. This development is also part of a recent trend towards general victim of crime policies that branch out into specialized policies devised to meet the needs of particular groups of victims such as victims of trafficking, victims of sexual violence and abuse or victims of traffic accidents. However, although a movement of national and...

Globalization is changing the victimological agenda by generating new types of victims, raising awareness of global responsibilities for their protection and eroding the capacity of states to offer it. Examples are victims of transnational organised crime including human trafficking, victims of cyber crimes, terrorism and cross-border environmental crimes.

The concept of human security has been introduced as an analytical tool to understand how growing international interdependencies produce a need to protect new categories of victims regardless of national borders. Whereas the...