Ultima ratio, is the principle at risk?Editors' introduction
- Bengoetxea Caballero, Joxerramon
- Jung, Heike
- Nuotio, Kimmo
- Bengoetxea Caballero, Joxerramon (coord.)
- Jung, Heike (coord.)
- Nuotio, Kimmo (coord.)
ISSN: 2079-5971
Year of publication: 2013
Issue Title: Ultima Ratio, a principle at risk. European Perspectives
Volume: 3
Issue: 1
Pages: 1-5
Type: Article
More publications in: Oñati socio-legal series
Abstract
Ultima ratio as a normative principle, or a constellation of principles, would be a hermeneutic pre-understanding or pre-interpretative concept to the effect that the definition of a certain socially relevant conduct as a crime and the consequent infliction of a penal sanction on the perpetrator of such conduct is a serious matter to be handled with caution and not to be abused. Similarly, the emergence of new definitions of "European" crimes is a matter of concern. The risk referred to in the rhetoric question of the Workshop �Is the ultima ratio principle at risk?� lies in the non-observance of the principle of minimal intervention, the tendency to criminalise and to bring all or any socially � even politically � undesirable actions under the criminal law, and to use the criminal definition and sanction for purposes and situations other than the strictly necessary � principle of necessity � and universally shared � principle of deep social consensus.
Bibliographic References
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- Haggenmüller, S., Jung, H., Stuckenberg, C.F., 2012.Ultima Ratio – einPrinzip in Gefahr? Goltdammer’s Archiv für Strafrecht, 159 (10), 636-41.
- Jareborg, N., 2005. Criminalization as Last Resort (Ultima Ratio). Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law [online], 2 (2), 521-534. Available from: http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/osjcl/files/2012/05/Jareborg-PDF3-17-05.pdf [Accessed 18 January 2013].