The Boundaries of Blame: Towards a Universal Partial Defence for the Criminal Law

Criminal Law › Law › Monthly List of Titles published under HK and UK Jurisdictions

The Boundaries of Blame: Towards a Universal Partial Defence for the Criminal Law

By Louise Kennefick
Cambridge University Press September 2025

Specifications

ISBN-13
9781009386104
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Publication
September 2025
Format
Hardback
Jurisdiction
U.K. ? Countri(es) for reference only

Details

How can our criminal law retain legitimacy in an era of growing awareness about the complexities of human vulnerability and the far-reaching harm of punitive attitudes? The Boundaries of Blame makes a fresh contribution to the evolving scholarship on the relationship between criminal responsibility and social justice. It challenges the constricted view of personhood underpinning doctrines of responsibility, encouraging new conversations about longstanding questions on the role of circumstances like deprivation and trauma in excusing wrongdoing. Testing entrenched boundaries can provoke resistance, but the book argues that pushing past these limits is essential to fostering a more just framework of state blame in our present time and place. To achieve this objective, Kennefick proposes a bold yet pragmatic response in the form of a Universal Partial Defence, grounded in the Real Person Approach - a blueprint that offers a practical and humane pathway towards a fairer measure of criminal accountability.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I. Purpose:
1. Activating the criminal law – establishing the duty to advance social justice

Part II. Paradigm and Principle:
2. The real person approach – recognising vulnerability at culpability evaluation
3. Proportionality – recalibrating the desert calculus
4. Parsimony – offsetting misrecognition at culpability evaluation

Part III. Partial Excuse (Practice, Doctrine, and Theory):
5. Universality – understanding and expanding the bounds of partial excuse
6. Diminished responsibility – exploring the template for the UPD
7. Bounded causal theory – rethinking the rationale of partial excuse


Part IV. Proposal:
8. The universal partial defence – outlining a blueprint for reform
Summary of key contributions
HKD 1,387.10 −3%
HKD 1,430.00

Inclusive of HK delivery

Ready to ship
Delivery Time: around 4-5 weeks
Extra 10 working days if shipping address outside Hong Kong
  • Free HK shipping over HK$1,000
  • International shipping to 35+ countries
Order Form
Save

Recommended

You may also be interested in these books:

More titles from Law

View all
Freshwater in its Three ‘Legal States’: The Prognosis for International Law
Edward Elgar Publishing

Freshwater in its Three ‘Legal States’: The Prognosis for International Law

Fabienne Quilleré-Majzoub
HKD 1,387.10
The Scottish Law Directory 2025 134th
LexisNexis U.K.

The Scottish Law Directory 2025 134th

The Law Society of Scotland
Indigenous Rights, Climate Change and Governance: Measuring Success and Data
Edward Elgar Publishing

Indigenous Rights, Climate Change and Governance: Measuring Success and Data

Valmaine Toki
HKD 1,160.12
The EU Treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights: A Commentary, 2nd Edition
Oxford University Press

The EU Treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights: A Commentary, 2nd Edition

Manuel Kellerbauer; Marcus Klamert; Jonathan Tomkin
HKD 4,980.95
Civil Regulation of Autonomous Unmanned Aircraft Systems in Europe
Edward Elgar Publishing

Civil Regulation of Autonomous Unmanned Aircraft Systems in Europe

Jacques Hartmann; Anna Masutti; Andrea Bertolini; Steven Truxal; Benjamyn I. Scott
HKD 1,639.30
National Constitutions and EU Integration
Hart Publishing

National Constitutions and EU Integration

Stefan Griller; Lina Papadopoulou; Roman Puff
HKD 1,008.80