Online research in philosophy

There is something intuitively correct about singling out emergency workers for legal protection, and for criminalizing not just assault, but obstruction. Moreover, at least one sophisticated theory of right and wrong – Scanlon’s—indicates some deep reasons for endorsing these intuitions. After applying Scanlon’s theory in the relevant way, I want to argue that the same grounds it provides for recent Scottish legislation and UK sentencing guidelines can also be given for punishing more seriously offences that current English law trivialises.

This paper describes and analyses Indonesia's Anti-terrorism Law of 2002. It provides a brief background to the law’s enactment, the crimes it defines, and compares the law with pre-existing provisions of Indonesia’s Criminal Code that had been applied against those accused of terrorism before 2002. The paper focuses on the special procedural rules on evidence, arrest and detention provided by the Anti-terrorism Law for use in terrorism cases.

In ‘On the Nature and Rationale of Property Offences’ A P Simester and G R Sullivan argue that the Harm Principle can be used to justify property offences. This article provides a critique of that essay. It begins with an overview of the Harm Principle and some key criticisms of it. It then considers Simester and Sullivan’s argument that the conduct proscribed by property offences causes harm to the property regime generally. The article suggests that this is an overly broad notion of harm on which to base criminalisation, and one that fails to adequately identify which particular breaches of property rights should be criminalised. The article suggests that criminality requires breach of a specific moral wrong and that for property offences this is the concept of dishonesty. Thus, contrary to Simester and Sullivan, it is argued that dishonesty is a core criminal concept that cannot be removed from such offences. The article goes on to suggest that instead of searching for broad abstract forms of harm, it may be useful to consider theft as a overarching offence that prohibits a number of more specific harms that correspond to lived experience. These harms could include the potential for violence in non-consensual takings, and the abuse of trust in fraudulent conversions.

'Criminal lawyers focus on the traditional sphere of ‘real crime’ - roughly equating to those offences requiring proof of mens rea or fault - while treating regulatory offences of strict liability, often enforced by specialist agencies rather than the public police, as a marginal and, perhaps, embarrassing exception to the general methods and principles of criminal law.’ (Lacey 2004: 144).

Controversy has erupted in many jurisdictions about the inclusion of a motive element in the criminal law definition of terrorism, in particular whether reference to a political, religious or ideological purpose or cause unjustifiably interferes in freedom of expression and freedom of religion, or invites racial or religious discrimination. This article argues that a compelling reason for including a motive element in an international or domestic definition of terrorist offences is that it helps to differentiate terrorism from other kinds of serious violence which may also generate fear (such as common assault, armed robbery, rape, or murder), while also according with commonplace public understanding of what constitutes terrorism. As such, the criminal law should recognise this distinction in defining terrorism, so as to more accurately express what is considered by the international and national communities to be distinctively wrongful about terrorism. Inevitably, this view reflects judgments of policy, politics and ethics, which may not be shared by all; but it is the critical impulse underlying arguments for including motive in definitions of terrorism.

First paragraph: The awesome range of Heike Jung’s work—over different aspects of criminal law, different jurisdictions and traditions, different disciplines and languages—makes life both easier and harder for contributors to his Festschrift: easier, because one can choose almost any criminal law topic and be confident that it will connect to his work; harder (for those with the British vices of monolingualism and intellectual parochialism), since one’s paper will display the linguistic, jurisdictional or intellectual limitations that Heike Jung’s work so impressively transcends. In an attempt to overcome some of those limitations, I will discuss a topic that concerns criminal trials and the scope of the criminal law, through the distinction between crimes (Straftaten) and ‘regulatory offences’ (Ordnungswidrigkeiten) which is more often formally drawn in Germany and other continental European systems than in English law.

This is a review essay of Gardner, John. 2007, Offences and Defences: Selected Essays in the Philosophy of Criminal Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 288 pp.

The wrongness of rape -- Rationality and the rule of law in offences against the person -- Complicity and causality -- In defence of defences -- Justifications and reasons -- The gist of excuses -- Fletcher on offences and defences -- Provocation and pluralism -- The mark of responsibility -- The functions and justifications of criminal law and punishment -- Crime : in proportion and in perspective -- Reply to critics.

This is a study of possession offences, with the focus on those intended to penalise the risk of a serious harm. Offences of this kind are examined in the light of basic doctrines of the criminal law, and in the light of the proper limits of endangerment offences. They are found wanting in both respects, and are also found to pose particular sentencing problems. The conclusion is that many risk-based possession offences are unfair, save those that require proof of a further intent or those aimed at a failure properly to safeguard a dangerous object.