Antony Duff, Marc de Wilde, Louis Sicking, and Sofia Stok offer several criticisms of my “The Enemy of All Humanity,” but central to all of them is concern that labeling people hostis generis humani dehumanizes them, and invites murder or extrajudicial execution. In response I distinguish political, legal, and theoretical uses of the ancient label. I agree with the critics that the political use is toxic and the legal use is dispensable. However, the theoretical concept is crucial in international criminal law, which rests on the assumptions that the moral heinousness of core crimes makes them the business of all humanity. Furthermore, far from dehumanizing their perpetrators, calling them to account before the law recognizes that they are no different from the rest of humanity. This response also offers rejoinders to more specific objections raised by the critics.

Trationally, the term “enemy of all humanity” (hostis generis humani) referred to pirates. In contemporary international criminal law, it refers to perpetrators of crimes against humanity and other core. This essay traces the evolution of the concept, and then offers an analysis that ties it more closely to ancient tyrants than to pirates. Some object that the label is dehumanizing, and justifies arbitrary killing of the “enemy of humanity.” The essay admits the danger, but defends the concept if it is restricted to fair trials. Rather than dehumanizing its target, calling the hostis generis humani to account in a court of law is a way of recognizing that radical evil can be committed by humans no different from any of us.

Whether and under which conditions restorative justice can be applied to cases of corporate violence is explored starting from the phenomenon of corporate violence, defined as acts committed by corporations in the course of their regular activities but with harmful consequences for people’s health. Specific characteristics of different types of corporate violence are presented, as well as victims’ needs, experiences and expectations. The applicability of restorative justice, but also the need of its rethinking, is discussed through an analysis of the role of its key actors and the concepts of participation and restoration.

This paper starts by reviewing empirical research that threatens law and economics’ initial success. This research has demonstrated that the functioning of the law cannot be well understood based on the assumption of the rational actor and that policies which are based on this assumption are likely to be flawed. Subsequently, three responses to this criticism are discussed. Whereas the first response denounces this criticism by maintaining that the limitations attributed to the rational actor can easily be incorporated in rational choice theory, the second response welcomes the criticism as an opportunity to come up with an integrative theory of law and behavior. The third response also takes the criticism seriously but replaces the aspiration to come up with such an integrative theory by a context-sensitive approach. It will be argued that the first two responses fall short while the third response offers a promising way to go forward.

In the United States, the term disproportionate minority contact (DMC) is used to refer to the disproportionate number of minority youth who come into contact with the juvenile justice system. Statistics on DMC in the United States put the issue on the political agenda and measures have been taken to reduce the inequality. In the Netherlands, there are some studies on the representation of ethnic minority groups in suspect statistics, but data regarding all ethnic groups at various stages of the juvenile justice chain are lacking. Due to this lack of information, DMC is not mentioned in Dutch research literature and is not a political issue. Therefore, the purpose of this article was to explore whether DMC existed in the Netherlands and whether elements of the US policy could be applied to the Dutch situation. To investigate this, the likelihood (odds ratio (OR)) was calculated for young people with a migration background to be registered and held as a suspect, to participate in an alternative punishment program (Halt) and their likelihood of incarceration. It turned out that the OR for young people with a non-Western migration background to be registered as a suspect was more than three times as high, with an OR of 5 or higher for some ethnic groups. The chances of a Halt-settlement were much lower for young people with a non-Western background. The odds of ending up in a youth prison was over six times higher for youngsters with a non-Western background compared to their Dutch native peers. For young people of Caribbean and Moroccan origin the likelihood was more than ten times higher. These results showed that DMC is present at all examined stages in the Dutch juvenile justice chain. The large overrepresentation of young people with a migration background (especially of Moroccan and Caribbean origin) shows that further research is needed in order to develop programs to reduce DMC. To establish this, it is important to register the ethnic origin of the individuals at all stages of the juvenile justice chain.

The Netherlands are considered as an important hub for the illicit trade in species of endangered birds protected by the CITES convention. In this article the authors analyze five substantial criminal cases from three different perspectives. First, from a criminal business perspective, the cases illustrate that logistics vary from relatively simple to highly complex, but always require in-depth knowledge of the animals as well as regulations, to be able to keep the birds alive to make a profit, and to smuggle them to the Netherlands, respectively. Second, from a network perspective, it is clear that those who are involved in the illicit trade – suppliers, traders and customers – are part of a closed and often long-lasting group of people who know the trade. Finally, from a green criminological perspective, the authors conclude that harms of the illicit trade in protected birds are mentioned only to a limited extent in court rulings, contrary to what one might expect based on social construction theories of criminalization and sentencing.

This article addresses the conditions of possibility for the precautionary turn in legal discourse. Although the precautionary turn itself has been well-detailed in both legal and political discourse, insufficient attention has been paid to what made this shift possible. This article remedies this, starting by showing how the events of 9/11 were unable to be incorporated within current discursive structures. As a result, these discursive structures were dislocated and a new ‘crisis discourse’ emerged that succeeded in attributing meaning to the events of 9/11. By focusing on three important cases from three different jurisdictions evidencing the precautionary turn in legal discourse, this article shows that crisis discourse is indeed employed by the judiciary and that its logic made this precautionary approach to counterterrorism in the law possible. These events, now some 16 years ago, hold relevance for today’s continuing presence of crisis and crisis discourse.

The apologies offered by young offenders in restorative justice conferences are often of poor quality. In this article the difficulties that accompany the offering of excuses are discussed. Offenders sometimes lack the language skills to pronounce an adequate apology, are anxious or insecure or believe that they have not been treated fairly. The mediation setting itself also has effects: sometimes perpetrators feel intimidated and feel compelled to say something that resembles an excuse. A related problem is that the perceptions about the sincerity of the apology can vary considerably. This perception-mismatch also occurs among victims: what one victim considers sincere is ‘fake’ for another. Many people
– also advocates of restorative justice – trust that the offender will offer a sincere apology, without realizing that this is not self-evident in a thorny confrontation setting. This article aims to temper this sincerity-expectation.

Fifty years ago, Gary Becker’s seminal article on the economics of crime and punishment was published. This paper reviews the theoretical developments in the field since then and takes stock of the strenghts and weaknesses of the economic approach.

Legal doctrinal scholarship engages with the problems of legal practice: it systematizes, comments on, evaluates and debates what goes on in law. These activities do not occur in a vacuum: they are embedded in scholarly traditions and theories. This paper discusses the role of the theoretical frameworks used in legal research and has two related aims. First, it aims to provide some practical conceptualizations and guidelines regarding theoretical and normative frameworks that are useful to understand and conduct legal research. Second, it aims to investigate the relationships between different kinds of normative frameworks and their relationship to empirical work. In the second part, an argument is made for a pragmatist understanding of the interplay between normative theorizing and empirical study. How do these work together in judgments about the state of the law?

The theory of retribution is a central tenet in Malawian sentencing jurisprudence. Courts have given expression to retribution in various ways, most conspicuously through the recognition of the principle of proportionality as the most important principle in sentencing. Retribution has permeated courts’ consideration of certain sentencing factors such as the seriousness of the offence, family obligations and public opinion. Overall, retribution rightly plays a pivotal role in Malawian sentencing jurisprudence by elevating the principle of proportionality to the most important principle in sentencing. Malawian courts have also noted that whether in pursuit of retribution or utilitarianism, the ultimate objective is to arrive at a sentence that is just and fair in relation to the crime and the offender. This also ensures that the sentence imposed does not offend the prohibition of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

This paper discusses the meaning and the importance of emotions, in particular the sincere guilt feelings of the offender. It is argued that the emotion of guilt reveals important information about the offender’s values and normative position. In the remainder of the paper, special consideration is awarded to the argument concerning ritual apologies, which might contain value even when insincere. This argument is rejected, on two grounds: 1. if the apology ritual does not aim for sincere guilt feelings, then the use of the symbol of apology is not fitting; and 2. if the apology ritual does aim for sincere guilt, then an insincere apology devalues the sincere expression.

The central question in this article is whether an empirical-legal approach of victimhood and victim rights could offer a sufficient basis for proposals of legal reform of the legal system. In this article, we choose a normative-critical approach and raise some objections to the way in which part of such research is currently taking place in the Netherlands, on the basis of two examples of research in this field, one dealing with compelled apologies as a possible remedy within civil procedural law and the other with the victim’s right to be heard within the criminal legal procedure. In both cases, we argue, the strong focus on the measurable needs of victims can lead to a relatively instrumental view of the legal system. The legal system must then increasingly be tailored to the wishes and needs of victims. Within this legal-empirical, victim-oriented approach, there is little regard for the general normative principles of our present legal system, in which an equal and respectful treatment of each human being as a free and responsible legal subject is a central value. We argue that results of empirical-legal research should not too easily or too quickly be translated into proposals for legal reform, but first become part of a hermeneutical discussion about norms and legal principles, specific to the normative quality of legal science itself.

This article focuses on the experiences that authors gained during a study trip to Japan. In general terms, the main features of Japanese criminal law are being observed. This system resembles the letter of Dutch criminal law, but in practice it appears to differ greatly. Among other things, attention is paid to the strong position of the prosecutor’s office, the high conviction rate, the limited contradictory nature of the criminal procedure, and the relative strong position of the victim. Subsequently, attention is given to some recent reforms, including the democratization of criminal law. Also, authors describe a visit to the Fuchu-prison. This article concludes with the question to what extent we could learn something from the Japanese practice in the Netherlands.

Valid interpretation of quasi-experimental effect evaluation studies using propensity score matching is in need of a more detailed coverage of non-matched cases in both experimental and comparison group. The argument is illustrated using a number of recent Dutch criminological studies.