This volume addresses an important historiographical gap by assessing the respective contributions of tradition and foreign influences to the 19th century codification of criminal law. More specifically, it focuses on the extent of French influence – among others – in European and American civil law jurisdictions. In this regard, the book seeks to dispel a number of myths concerning the French model’s actual influence on European and Latin American criminal codes. The impact of the Napoleonic criminal code on other jurisdictions was real, but the scope and extent of its influence were significantly less than has sometimes been claimed. The overemphasis on French influence on other civil law jurisdictions is partly due to a fundamental assumption that modern criminal codes constituted a break with the past. The question as to whether they truly broke with the past or were merely a degree of reform touches on a difficult issue, namely, the dichotomy between tradition and foreign influences in the codification of criminal law. Scholarship has unfairly ignored this important subject, an oversight that this book remedies.

This book explores the causal relationship between the deregulation of international economic interests and the forms of violence that prevail in a large part of the Global South. More specifically, this book tells the story of how transnational corporations benefitting from increasing deregulation of their international economic interests, account for severe harm, the unrelenting violation of human rights, and maldevelopment in Latin America. Dependent on the structural deficiencies of the Latin American region, this book tests the examples of the extractive industries and multinational expansionism and the link between deregulated economies at the international level and the damaging local effects that increase what is here called maldevelopment. Introducing the conceptual category of maldevelopment to criminology, the author makes recommendations for further research and outlines a network of possible mechanisms for its prevention and sanction - and for the work of reparation and construction towards the satisfaction of the needs of the victim or victimizable populations. This provocative and original text will be essential reading for those concerned with white collar crime and crimes of the powerful, and for researchers in criminology, sociology, law, political science, development studies and international political economy.

Im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert traten weltweit Gesetzgeber mit der Absicht auf, lokale Rechtsordnungen nach westlichem Muster umzubilden. Aber welche Modelle sollten als Vorbilder dienen, da doch die rechtliche Realität bereits in Westeuropa uneinheitlich war? Zudem wurde das importierte Recht vor Ort unterschiedlich aufgenommen, umformuliert und interpretiert. Der Band untersucht das Spannungsfeld zwischen den universellen Ansprüchen verschiedener imperialer und post-imperialer Gesetzgeber und der lokalen Umsetzung und Anwendung neuer Rechtsformen, von Lateinamerika und Afrika über Russland bis nach Ostasien.