What is law? What is deviance? What is justice? How is justice achieved through law, punishment, and criminal justice agencies? Now in its third edition, Foundations of Criminal Justice uses a unique approach that provides students with the framework and the intellectual tools that they will need in order to critically analyze and evaluate the nature, sources, scope, purposes, and practical limitations of the criminal justice system. This is the only introductory survey text that moves beyond a description of the criminal justice system, helping students understand the role of criminal justice in their lives as criminal justice practitioners and as active citizens.

"I came upon some excellent readings for the first time in this book....[It] could admirably serve its intended purpose as supplementary readings in a law school course in the hands of an instructor who wishes to emphasize the philosophical analysis of criminal law."--Law and Politics Book Review

Fundamentals of Criminal Law: Caught in the Act offers an accessible, comprehensive and contemporary survey of the field. With a focus on the current state of the law and contemporary problems that matter to students, the material is presented in a meaningful and conversational tone designed to pique curiosity and foster critical thinking.

Twenty-five leading contemporary theorists of criminal law tackle a range of foundational issues about the proper aims and structure of the criminal law in a liberal democracy. The challenges facing criminal law are many. There are crises of over-criminalization and over-imprisonment; penal policy has become so politicized that it is difficult to find any clear consensus on what aims the criminal law can properly serve; governments seeking to protect their citizens in the face of a range of perceived threats have pushed the outer limits of criminal law and blurred its boundaries. To think clearly about the future of criminal law, and its role in a liberal society, foundational questions about its proper scope, structure, and operations must be re-examined. What kinds of conduct should be criminalized? What are the principles of criminal responsibility? How should offences and defences be defined? The criminal process and the criminal trial need to be studied closely, and the purposes and modes of punishment should be scrutinized. Such a re-examination must draw on the resources of various disciplines-notably law, political and moral philosophy, criminology and history; it must examine both the inner logic of criminal law and its place in a larger legal and political structure; it must attend to the growing field of international criminal law, it must consider how the criminal law can respond to the challenges of a changing world. Topics covered in this volume include the question of criminalization and the proper scope of the criminal law; the grounds of criminal responsibility; the ways in which offences and defences should be defined; the criminal process and its values; criminal punishment; the relationship between international criminal law and domestic criminal law. Together, the essays provide a picture of the exciting state of criminal law theory today, and the basis for further research and debate in the coming years.

How can the brutal and costly enterprise of criminal punishment be justified? This book makes a provocative, original contribution to the philosophical literature and debate on the morality of punishing, arguing that punishment is justified in the duties that offenders incur as a result of their wrongdoing.

To understand the international legal order in the field of criminal law, we need to ask three elementary questions. What is international law? What is criminal law? And what happens to these two fields when they are joined together? Volume Two of The Grammar of Criminal Law sets out to answer these questions through a series of twelve dichotomies - such as law vs. justice, intention vs. negligence, and causation vs. background events - that invite the reader to better understand the jurisprudential foundations of international criminal law. The book will appeal to anyone interested in the future of international cooperation in a time of national retrenchment, and will be of interest to students, scholars, and policymakers around the world.

Since the adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in 1998, international criminal law has rapidly grown in importance. This second edition of the first volume of an acclaimed three-volume Treatise on International Criminal Law deals with the foundations and general part of international criminal law, and general principles of international criminal justice. Taking into account the scholarly literature, not only sources written in English but also in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, the book draws on the author's extensive academic work and practical experience in international criminal law. This second edition of the authoritative volume has been completely revised, updated, and rewritten in some parts. These comprehensive updates ensure that Kai Ambos' Treatise remains an indispensable reference work for academics and practitioners of international criminal law.