This book addresses potential avenues of criminal liability for public health crisis management in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, under national and international criminal law, especially for causing death and bodily harm. The national case studies are geographically representative and follow a common research grid. Each national case study is prefaced by an overview of the detection and subsequent spread of the pandemic in the country concerned. The relevant legal and constitutional frameworks that governed the government and corporate conduct in the face of the pandemic are also discussed, followed by the consideration of forms of criminal liability. Government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic differed vastly in terms of both the choice of strategies adopted (herd immunity, test-and-trace, lockdown, etc) and the quality and speed of government implementation of those strategies and associated interventions. Both factors impacted the number of infections and casualties. It is therefore appropriate to consider forms of criminal liability for failure of individual members of government, including specific public authorities, to act to the best of their abilities, as timely as possible, and in accordance with expert advice.

The Buffalo Criminal Law Review is a peer-reviewed journal published by the Buffalo Criminal Law Center at the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law. The Review pursues two interrelated objectives: to integrate the study of criminal law by serving as an interdisciplinary and international forum for innovative scholarship on crime and punishment, and to bridge the gap between criminal law scholarship and criminal justice policy by providing legislators, judges, and other criminal justice professionals with in-depth analyses of topical issues in criminal law.

El presente estudio busca resolver un problema en la aplicación del derecho internacional: la implementación de tipos penales en la ley penal nacional a partir de las obligaciones internacionales. El dilema jurídico consiste en conciliar las obligaciones que tienen los Estados, derivadas de los tratados de represión penal, con las exigencias del derecho penal democrático, previsto en las constituciones y en los derechos humanos. A este ejercicio de equilibrio se le denomina técnica de la equivalencia funcional. Se toma como modelo de aplicación la desaparición forzada de personas por la complejidad del crimen internacional. Su regulación internacional está prevista en diversos tratados, las conductas son diversas pero entrelazadas y los elementos son diferentes. Así, es un buen caso de estudio para la aplicación de esta técnica. Además, el estudio se realiza con base en la legislación mexicana, que sirve también como modelo de análisis dentro de un marco legal ya existente.