Substantive Criminal Law

Faculty of Law

Substantive Criminal Law

Full course description

*** This course is only offered as 'Exam Only' course. There will be no educational activities offered such as tutorials or lectures. Registration for this course is possible within the normal registration window for education. Please consult the Academic Calendar 2023-24 for further information about deadlines and exam periods ***

Although every (European) country has its legal culture, and its own criminal law, each system may be understood as a ‘local’ answer to some ‘universal’ questions that constitute the foundation of criminal law. Criminal law deals with similar subjects and thus more or less the same issues internationally. That’s why it is necessary to cross borders to see what kind of solutions other legal systems have to offer for present and future problems. The main objective of this course is therefore to get acquainted with the elementary concepts of the so-called general part of substantive criminal law, and the main differences and similarities between several European legal systems, like the common law system of England and Wales and the civil law system of the Netherlands and Germany. The main concepts that will be studied are: principles of criminalisation, the objective and subjective elements of an offence (actus reus and mens rea), justifications and excuses, inchoate offences, modes of participation, and corporate criminal liability This seven week course will combine seven sessions of group tutorials. According to the philosophy of problem-based learning, tutorial meetings shall be used to explore various concepts of substantive criminal law in different countries on the basis of some reading assignments, presentations and case studies. Using comparative literature students are asked to answer given background questions and specific questions on the case studies.

This obligatory course is a 4th period course of the first Bachelor year of the ELS-ET.

Course objectives

The object of this course is to identify various principles, rules and concepts of the so-called general part of substantive criminal law by using a conceptual and comparative methodology. Upon completion of this course, the student must be able to

analyze and understand the main concepts and rules of substantive criminal law;
to understand and compare on an introductory level the main differences and similarities of the basic criminal liability concepts of three major European legal systems, i.e. Netherlands, Germany and the common law system of England and Wales;
to critically reflect on some basic philosophical aspects and (recent) historical developments related to principles of criminalisation and rules of criminal liability;
to recognise and debate on an introductory level some societal and ethically relevant aspects of developments in substantive criminal law (e.g. terrorism, corporate criminal liability)
to distil a problem in criminal law cases and to identify and apply the relevant rules and criteria in order to solve the cases (in a comparative way);
to communicate and debate during the tutorials and also during separate oral presentations possible solutions of a criminal law case in a well argumented way

Prerequisites

The student is expected to have mastered the general basic principles of criminal law as discussed in the first year course Introduction to law (J. Hage & B. Akkermans (eds), Introduction to law, Springer, 2017) and legal English. No specific knowledge on criminal law is however required.

Substantive Criminal Law