This chapter explains the justifications of self-defence, the prevention of crime, and other ‘public or private defences’, the justification of self-help, and the excuses of duress by threats and duress of circumstances. It also examines when necessity can provide a justification for otherwise criminal conduct and whether a defendant can be excused through superior orders.
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Essential Cases: Criminal Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in R v SO [2013] EWCA Crim 1725, Court of Appeal. The document also included supporting commentary from author Jonathan Herring.
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Essential Cases: Criminal Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in R v SO [2013] EWCA Crim 1725, Court of Appeal. The document also included supporting commentary from author Jonathan Herring.
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This chapter discusses international law governing the use or threat of force by states. The UN Security Council has primary responsibility for enforcement action to deal with breaches of the peace, threats to the peace, or acts of aggression. Individual member states have the right of individual or collective self-defence, but only ‘until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security’. However, the practice has evolved of authorizing peacekeeping operations that are contingent upon the consent of the state whose territory is the site of the operations.
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Michael J. Allen and Ian Edwards
Course-focused and contextual, Criminal Law provides a succinct overview of the key areas on the law curriculum balanced with thought-provoking contextual discussion. This chapter discusses general defences of duress, necessity, and private defence and prevention of crime. Duress relates to the situation where a person commits an offence to avoid the greater evil of death or serious injury to himself or another threatened by a third party. Necessity relates to the situation where a person commits an offence to avoid the greater evil to himself or another, which would ensue from objective dangers arising from the circumstances in which he or that other are placed. An accused charged with a violent offence may seek to plead that he acted as he did to protect himself, or his property, or others from attack; or to prevent crime; or to effect a lawful arrest.
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David Ormerod and Karl Laird
This chapter considers general defences other than those focused on the mental condition of the accused, and looks at cases where the defendant will usually have performed the actus reus with the appropriate mens rea. These general defences include infancy (children less than ten years old and children ten years old and above), duress, necessity and orders of a superior. The chapter also discusses public and private defence (‘self’-defence), the statutory ‘clarification’ of these defences, the controversy over householder self-defence, force used in the course of preventing crime or arresting offenders, force used in private defence, entrapment and impossibility.
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Each Concentrate revision guide is packed with essential information, key cases, revision tips, exam Q&As, and more. Concentrates show you what to expect in a law exam, what examiners are looking for, and how to achieve extra marks. This chapter examines the defences of consent; self-defence (which includes using reasonable force in the defence of oneself, defence of others, of property, and the prevention of crime); and duress (which consists of being compelled to commit a crime to avoid death or serious harm in a situation of immediacy where there is no route of escape). Duress is an excusatory defence; consent and self-defence are justificatory defences. If the defence of necessity does exist separately to the defence of duress, it is a justificatory defence.
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Each Concentrate revision guide is packed with essential information, key cases, revision tips, exam Q&As, and more. Concentrates show you what to expect in a law exam, what examiners are looking for, and how to achieve extra marks. This chapter examines the defences of consent, self-defence (which includes using reasonable force in the defence of oneself, defence of others, of property, and the prevention of crime), and duress (which consists of being compelled to commit a crime to avoid death or serious harm in a situation of immediacy where there is no route of escape). Duress is an excusatory defence; consent and self-defence are justificatory defences. If the defence of necessity does exist separately to the defence of duress, it is a justificatory defence.
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David Ormerod and Karl Laird
Manslaughter is defined by common law as any unlawful homicide that is not murder. The offence is limited by murder at one extreme and accidental killing at the other. Manslaughter can be either ‘voluntary’ or ‘involuntary’. This chapter deals with voluntary manslaughter: this occurs when someone had the intention to kill or do grievous bodily harm, but relies on a partial defence to murder. The two partial defences considered in this chapter are loss of self- control and diminished responsibility (suicide pact is dealt with in Ch 15). This chapter scrutinizes the defences available to the accused and in particular the developing case law under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 on loss of control and diminished responsibility, including the Supreme Court’s decision in Golds and the series of Court of Appeal cases since that decision.
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Essential Cases: Criminal Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in R v Taj [2018] EWCA Crim 1743, Court of Appeal. The document also included supporting commentary from author Jonathan Herring.
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Essential Cases: Criminal Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in R v Taj [2018] EWCA Crim 1743, Court of Appeal. The document also included supporting commentary from author Jonathan Herring.
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This chapter focuses on defences. The following controversies are examined: whether the fact of childhood constitutes a defence; the extent to which duress can negate criminal liability; whether necessity ought to be a defence; whether recent legislative developments have rendered self-defence unduly complex; and the distinction between justifications and excuses and whether these classifications have any practical import.
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This chapter focuses on legal defences to criminal offences in Great Britain that will result in acquittal, which include duress and duress of circumstances, necessity, compulsion, public and private defence, and mistaken belief. These defences can be divided into justifications and excuses, and most of them consist of subjective and objective elements. The chapter explains the general principles of these excusatory and justificatory defences, and evaluates proposed reforms of criminal law covering these types of defence. It also provides examples of relevant cases and analyses the bases of court decisions in each of them.
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Titles in the Core Text series take the reader straight to the heart of the subject, providing focused, concise, and reliable guides for students at all levels. This chapter introduces the nature of a ‘defence’, and the key issues in relation to various ‘defences’. The nature of defences is hard to generalize. Excuses and justifications are useful classifications. The absence of consent is an important component of many offences. The Law Commission had suggested that consent should not be a defence for those who deliberately or recklessly induce serious disabling injury.
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Without assuming prior legal knowledge, books in the Directions series introduce and guide readers through key points of law and legal debate. Questions, diagrams, and exercises help readers to engage fully with each subject and check their understanding as they progress. This chapter explores the remaining general defences: self-defence, protection of another, and the prevention of crime, duress, duress of circumstances, and necessity. A defendant may rely on self-defence where he honestly believes that use of force is necessary in order to protect him and the force used is reasonable. The issue of duress arises where the defendant is threatened that he must commit a criminal offence or suffer physical injury or injury to his family. Duress excuses a defendant’s behaviour as a concession to human frailty, whereas necessity justifies it. Necessity does not require a threat made by a person of death or physical injury, but merely a choice between two evils.
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This chapter focuses on legal defences to criminal offences in England and Wales that will result in acquittal, which include duress and duress of circumstances, necessity, compulsion, public and private defence, and mistaken belief. These defences can be divided into justifications and excuses, and most of them consist of subjective and objective elements. The chapter explains the general principles of these excusatory and justificatory defences and evaluates proposed reforms of criminal law covering these types of defence. It also provides examples of relevant cases and analyses the bases of court decisions in each of them.
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This chapter deals with general complete defences that the accused can use to avoid liability. The focus is on defences that can apply (with one exception) to offences throughout the criminal law and will result in the accused’s acquittal. Five kinds of general complete defences are examined: insanity (as a defence), duress by threats, duress by circumstances, the public and private defence (also known as self-defence), and necessity. The chapter first considers the categorical division between excuses and justifications, before explaining the elements of each of the defences in turn. It then outlines potential options for legal reform concerning individual defences and concludes by discussing the application of the general defences to problem facts. Relevant cases are highlighted throughout the chapter, with brief summaries of the main facts and judgments.
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Paola Gaeta, Jorge E. Viñuales, and Salvatore Zappalà
The Cold War era prevented the UN Security Council from using most of the powers provided for by the UN Charter, including adopting measures under Chapter VII (the so-called ‘collective security system’ which provides for measures ranging from sanctions to the use of armed force) for events deemed (by the Security Council) to be threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, or acts of aggression. However, the end of the Cold War enabled the Security Council to take some of the measures short of force envisaged in Article 41 and to interpret creatively the provisions of the Charter so as to authorize enforcement action through the use of armed force by individual States or coalitions of States. This chapter discusses measures short of armed force; peacekeeping operations; resort to force by States, as well as regional and other organizations, upon authorization of the Security Council; the special case of authorization to use force given by the General Assembly; as well as the right to self-defence and the various situations in which armed force has been used unilaterally by States.
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International law aims to regulate the use of force in two ways. First, it stipulates that there is a paramount obligation not to use force to settle disputes, with only limited exceptions; and second, it has at its disposal a procedure whereby the international community itself may use force against those using violence. These are known respectively as the rules on the ‘unilateral use of force’ and the rules of ‘collective security’, both of which are discussed in this chapter.
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Christine Gray
This chapter examines the law on the use of force. It discusses the UN Charter scheme; the Prohibition of the Use of Force in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter; intervention, civil wars, and invitation; self-defence; the use of force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter; UN peacekeeping; and regional action under Chapter VIII of the UN Charter. The UN Charter provisions on the use of force by States, Article 2(4) on the prohibition of force, and Article 51 on self-defence, have all caused fundamental divisions between States. There is disagreement as to whether the prohibition on force should be interpreted strictly or whether it allows humanitarian intervention, as in Kosovo. There is also disagreement over the scope of the right of self-defence. The response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks has led to a fundamental reappraisal of the law in this area.
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