Criminal Law A Comparative Approach

Criminal Law: A Comparative Approach presents a systematic and comprehensive analysis of the substantive criminal law of two major jurisdictions: the United States and Germany.

Presupposing no familiarity with either U.S. or German criminal law, the book will provide criminal law scholars and students with a rich comparative understanding of criminal law's foundations and central doctrines. All foreign-language sources have been translated into English; cases and materials are accompanied by heavily cross-referenced introductions and notes that place them within the framework of each country's criminal law system and highlight issues ripe for comparative analysis.

Divided into three parts, the book covers foundational issues - such as constitutional limits on the criminal law - before tackling the major features of the general part of the criminal law and a selection of offences in the special part. Throughout, readers are exposed to alternative approaches to familiar problems in criminal law, and as a result will have a chance to see a given country's criminal law doctrine, on specific issues and in general, from the critical distance of comparative analysis.

Markus Dubber, Professor of Law, University of Toronto,Tatjana Hornle, Professor of Criminal Law, Comparative Criminal Law, and Penal Philosophy, Humboldt University, Berlin

Part I: Preliminary
1. Punishment: Concepts, Forms, Limits
2. Legality Principle (nulla poena sine lege)
3. Constitutional limits on substantive criminal law
4. Jurisdiction
5. Procedural Contexts
6. Analysis of Criminal Liability
Part II: General Part
7. Actus Reus (Objective Elements)
8. Mens Rea (Subjective Elements)
9. Causation
10. Complicity
11. Corporate criminal liability
12. Inchoate offenses
13. Justifications
14. Excuses
Part III The Special Part
15. Offenses Against the Person
16. Offenses Against Sexual Autonomy: Rape and Sexual Assault
17. Other Offenses