Participation In Crime

Following on from the earlier edited collection, Loss of Control and Diminished Responbility, this book is the first volume in the Substantive Issues in Criminal Law series. It serves as a leading point of reference in the area relating to participation in crime and identifies the need for a consistent approach to the doctrinal and theoretical underpinnings of complicity liability. With a section on the UK analysing points of current interest, the book also has a large comparative section dealing with foreign jurisdictions and examines on the basis of a unified research grid how different legal systems treat core issues of participation in the context of criminal law. This book is a valuable reference resource for those in the criminal justice community in the UK and abroad and for academics, the judiciary and policy-makers.

A comparative and collaborative study of the foundational principles and concepts that underpin different domestic systems of criminal law.

Requirements for the defendant to actively participate in the English criminal process have been increasing in recent years such that the defendant can now be penalised for their non-cooperation. This book explores the changes to the defendant’s role as a participant in the criminal process and the ramifications of penalising a defendant’s non-cooperation, particularly its effect on the adversarial system. The book develops a normative theory which proposes that the criminal process should operate as a mechanism for calling the state to account for its accusations and request for official condemnation and punishment of the accused. It goes on to examine the limitations placed on the privilege against self-incrimination, the curtailment of the right to silence, and the defendant’s duty to disclose the details of his or her case prior to trial. The book shows that, by placing participatory requirements on defendants and penalising them for their non-cooperation, a system of obligatory participation has developed. This development is the consequence of pursuing efficient fact-finding with little regard for principles of fairness or the rights of the defendant.

This volume clearly sets out the international criminal law framework, featuring tools to consider and assess the current status of the law and encourage critical analysis of the latest debates affecting the subject area.

With the coming into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, the competences of the European Union in the realm of criminal law have greatly expanded. The EU, in a multitude of legislative instruments, requires its Member States to criminalize a big variety of harmful conducts. However, the criminal law legislation of the EU has, so far, almost exclusively focused on specific criminal offenses and has failed to develop and define general principles of criminal law. The EU frequently refers to conduct, attempt, and participation in its legislation, but fails to determine what these concepts should denote. As a result, the scope of European criminal law may differ among European countries as Member States will apply their national doctrines to European legislation. This book steps into this lacuna by establishing what actus reus and rules on participation should look like in European criminal law. In addition, it investigates inchoate offenses and corporate criminal liability. How should the doctrines of conduct, omission, and causation be defined? How to attribute liability in case several people cooperate to bring about a criminal result? What should preparing and attempting a crime denote in European criminal law and how can corporations best be held responsible for the harm they have caused? To answer these questions, this book distills common general principles on actus reus, participation, inchoate and corporate liability from the national criminal justice systems of the Member States, as well as from EU law. These results are subsequently merged into coherent principles of European criminal law. The author, Dr. Johannes Keiler, was awarded the prestigious criminal law Modderman Prize for this book in 2014. (Series: School of Human Rights Research - Vol. 60)

In Reinterpreting Criminal Complicity and Inchoate Participation Offences, Dennis J. Baker argues that the mental element in complicity is one of intention, that recklessness alone is not sufficient. This is demonstrated by showing that the ancient and modern authorities on complicity required intention. The book argues the ‘causal participation’ element in complicity means that the conduct element can only be established when there is intentional encouragement on the part of the accessory. As the Accessories and Abettors Act 1861, like most of the statutory provisions found in the United States, deems that both perpetrator and accessory are perpetrators for the purpose of punishment and crime labelling, limiting the mental element in complicity to intentional participation is, the author argues, the only way to reconcile these provisions with the requirements of proportionate punishment and fair labelling. As some forms of reckless encouragement and assistance will not be criminalised if the mental element in complicity is intention only, the author suggests that the solution is to amend section 45 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 to criminalise reckless participation. In addition, the author argues that standard complicity and joint enterprise complicity have the same mental and conduct elements and thus joint enterprise complicity is not a distinct form of complicity.

Following on from the earlier edited collection, Loss of Control and Diminished Responbility, this book is the first volume in the Substantive Issues in Criminal Law series. It serves as a leading point of reference in the area relating to participation in crime and identifies the need for a consistent approach to the doctrinal and theoretical underpinnings of complicity liability. With a section on the UK analysing points of current interest, the book also has a large comparative section dealing with foreign jurisdictions and examines on the basis of a unified research grid how different legal systems treat core issues of participation in the context of criminal law. This book is a valuable reference resource for those in the criminal justice community in the UK and abroad and for academics, the judiciary and policy-makers.

This study is the second in the four-part series entitled “Rethinking the Essentials of International Criminal Law and Transitional Justice”. While the first volume, The Concept of Universal Crimes in International Law, explored the parameters and theories related to crimes under international law, this book examines the notion of punishable participation in such crimes. It presents a general theory of personal criminal liability and provides a comprehensive overview of all forms of criminal participation in international law. The authors examine numerous primary materials in international and transnational criminal law, both historical and current, relating to both international and domestic jurisprudence. They also review academic literature that attempts to explain and bring consistency to the jurisprudence, as well as other sources such as reports of the International Law Commission. This rich empirical tapestry is then used to test and further develop an overarching conceptual theory and matrix that provides a better understanding of the boundaries of personal criminal liability lex lata and lex ferenda and of the relationship between the various forms of punishable participation in universal crimes. Like the first volume, this book makes a valuable contribution to a more coherent and practical understanding of international criminal law.