Positive Obligations in Criminal Law

1: Is the Criminal Law a Lost Cause?
1.1 Distinguishing Criminal Offences by Reference to their Content
1.2 The Procedural Distinction
1.3 The Functional Distinction
1.4 Proceedings and Protections
1.5 The Seriousness of Wrongdoing
1.6 Equal Treatment, Countervailing Interests and Differential Enforcement
1.7 Criminalisation and Sentencing
1.8 The Principled Core of Criminal Law
2: Criminalising Omissions
2.1 The Place of Omissions in the Criminal Law
2.2 The Foundations of Legal Duties
2.3 A Re-appraisal of Duty-Situations
2.4 Omissions Offences and the Rule of Law
2.5 The Contours of Omissions Liability
2.6 Omissions as Offence-Elements
2.7 What Duty-Situations Should Require
2.8 Conclusions
3: Ignorance of the Criminal Law, and Duties to Avoid it
3.1 Is Ignorance of the Criminal Law No Defence?
3.2 The Ignorance-of-Law Doctrine and the Principle of Legality
3.3 Three Different Contexts for Ignorance of the Criminal Law
3.4 What are the State's Obligations?
3.5 Some Practical Implications
3.6 Conclusions
4: Should Strict Criminal Liability be Removed from All Imprisonable Offences?
4.1 What is Strict Criminal Liability?
4.2 Reasons for Requiring Fault for Criminal Conviction
4.3 Serious Crime: Limitations and Exceptions
4.4 Imprisonment Without Fault
4.5 Conclusions
5: A Change of Normative Position: Determining the Contours of Culpability in Criminal Law
5.1 Unlawful Act Theory
5.2 The Nub of Subjectivism
5.3 Moderate Constructivism, Autonomy and the Rule of Law
5.4 The Idea of Change of Normative Position
5.5 Determining the Effect of a Change of Normative Position
5.6 Change of Normative Position by Acting Knowingly
5.7 Moderate Constructivism Re-Stated
6: The Unfairness of Risk-Based Possession Offences
6.1 Risk-Based Possession Offences9
6.2 Possession Offences and Core Doctrines
6.3 Possession as a Form of Endangerment

Andrew Ashworth CBE QC FBA is Vinerian Professor Emeritus of English Law in the University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College.