Justice in Criminal Law

What does it mean to achieve »justice« in criminal law? The editors of this volume have approached this question by presenting vignettes of ten »hard cases« in criminal law to jurists from 16 jurisdictions worldwide, asking for their assessment. This volume contains the reports written by these experts. They explain how the laws of their jurisdictions as interpreted by courts and scholars would resolve each of the ten problems represented in the vignettes. The responses to each vignette are analyzed in Synopses which describe similarities and differences between national perspectives and draw conclusions from comparing them. The findings are summarized in the editors’ Concluding Observations. They suggest that some general ideas of justice in criminal law are indeed shared across legal systems, but that they do not necessarily lead to the same outcomes when applied to specific cases. Similarities appear more in the way judges and scholars argue than in the results at which they arrive.