AbstractIdeals of universalism and the idea that all lives are equally valuable, and should be equally worthy of protection, form a standard narrative for human rights regimes and international legal instruments. However, realities on the ground are marked by social arrangements where lives are de facto unequally protected. The article addresses one of the central criminological concepts and perspectives—that of inequality—and examines possible avenues for theorizing the dynamics of global

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... ity inequality. How well equipped is criminology to address the underlying processes of social stratification which shape decisions about whose life gets to be protected, and by what means? What might a global understanding of inequality look like? To what extent do existing concepts for analyzing inequality enhance or impede our understanding of global social cleavages?