OVERVIEW OF THE THEME OF THE CONGRESS

The Congress will focus on the role of Criminal Law in its specific reference to the protection of coming generations against a number of new risks – risks of health, of the environment, of the economy, etc.

Several problems arise: on the one hand, the problem of the legitimacy (and to what degree) of crime-obstacles (abstrakte Gefährdungsdelikte), which occur between prevention and repression; on the other hand, the problem of the determination of the interests and juridical assets to be protected (does the recognition of supra-individual, social assets enhance the protection of the individual?); finally, should criminal law focus exclusively on the intervention in the individual case, or might it have recourse to a «macro» orientation, in this sense that its intervention could be more limited than that of administrative law, which establishes strict controls and prohibitions of general application applicable to all citizens (whereas criminal law only deals with offenders).

Particular focus will be given to the new challenges facing criminal liability: new alternatives and limits, new forms and new goals. Such dilution, or broadening of the scope of classic criminal liability, is in response to the phenomenon, often described by modern sociology, of the collectivisation of social life today. Taken in the vertical sense, and starting from the division of labour (and of its tasks), there is no longer a 'central' figure to charge with liability within the company, since the company worker does not meet the legal requirements to qualify as the author of a crime (producer, exporter, etc.) and company directors or executives themselves are not the material authors of the facts contested in law. Hence the idea of not (only) referring natural persons, but (also) corporate entities to a criminal court. Taken in the horizontal sense, globalisation of international relations has meant that a criminal offence is no longer perpetrated in just one country, but rather is made up of diverse facts carried out by different entities in several countries. Hence the classic idea of mutual judicial co-operation (which nevertheless presupposes that a crime has been 'completely' committed in one given country) and the modern 'construction' of an 'economic entity' to encompass, on the juridical plane, the dispersion of activities over several countries, a choice adopted for reasons of competition, taxation etc.

Such dilution of criminal liability described above to envisage economic activities would also apply to issues such as destruction of the environment, problems posed by biogenetics and liability for hazardous or defective products, an area where the relation between criminal and civil liability is a delicate question since, being often a case of negligence, it falls within the scope of civil law.

With regard to protecting future generations that will bear the risks and threat of genocide, war and all kinds of discrimination, the Congress proposes to analyse possible remedial mechanisms, namely through the instruments provided by the International Criminal Courts and Reconciliation Commissions. The new perspectives opened up to fundamental human rights by the European Charter recently launched in Nice will also be a focus of discussion.