Personal Autonomy, the Private Sphere and Criminal Law: A Comparative Study

This book contains original essays by a distinguished group of jurists from six different European countries confronting the increasing range of legal and philosophical issues arising from the relationship between privacy and the criminal law. The collection is particularly timely in light of the incorporation into English law of the European Convention on Human Rights. It compares legal cultures and underlying assumptions with regard to the private sphere,personal autonomy and the supposed justifications for State interference through criminalization and the implementation of substantive criminal law. The book moves from treatment of general ideas like the relationship between sovereignty, the nation-state and substantive criminal law in the new European context, (with its concomitant aspiration towards the establishment of transnational morality) to more detailed consideration of specific areas of substantive law and procedure, viewed from a range of perspectives. Areas considered include euthanasia, surrogacy, female genital mutilation and sado-masochism.