Comparing Tort and Crime
Learning from across and within Legal Systems

First English-language comparative volume to study where, how and why tort and crime interact. Covers common and civil law countries.

Matthew Dyson (Edited by)

9781107080485, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 July 2015

558 pages, 1 b/w illus. 2 tables
23.6 x 16 x 3.7 cm, 0.93 kg

'Dyson provides a broad and measured study with a wealth of in­sights at all levels of abstraction. He might be thought in some respects to have led his reader through an aporetic dialogue to an unsettling appreciation of our extensive ignorance; nothing becomes as clear as the need to know more. Throughout the text, however, Dyson specifically highlights a myriad of areas for further investigation and casts clear light on where he sees that the analysis should lead next.' Andrew J. Bell, Rabels Zeitschrift für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht

The fields of tort and crime have much in common in practice, particularly in how they both try to respond to wrongs and regulate future behaviour. Despite this commonality in fact, fascinating difficulties have hitherto not been resolved about how legal systems co-ordinate (or leave wild) the border between tort and crime. What is the purpose of tort law and criminal law, and how do you tell the difference between them? Do criminal lawyers and civil lawyers reason and argue in the same way? Are the rules on capacity, consent, fault, causation, secondary liability or defences the same in tort as in crime? How do the rules of procedure operate for each area? Are there points of overlap? When, how and why do tort and crime interact? This volume systematically answers these and other questions for eight legal systems: England, France, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Scotland, the Netherlands and Australia.

1. Introduction Matthew Dyson
2. England's splendid isolation Matthew Dyson and John Randall, QC
3. The quest for balance between tort and crime in French law Valérie Malabat and Véronique Wester-Ouisse
4. Delictual liability and criminal accountability in German law Phillip Hellwege and Petra Wittig
5. Crime and tort in Sweden: theoretical distinction, practical connection Sandra Friberg and Martin Sunnqvist
6. Blurred borders in Spanish tort and crime Lorena Bachmeir Winter, Carlos Gómez-Jara Díez and Albert Ruda Gónzalez
7. Mixing and matching in Scottish delict and crime John Blackie and James Chalmers
8. The Dutch crush on compensating crime victims Ivo Giesen, François Kristen and Renée Kool
9. Australia: a land of plenty (of legislative regimes) Kylie Burns, Arlie Loughnan, Mark Lunney and Sonya Willis
10. Tortious apples and criminal oranges Matthew Dyson.

Subject Areas: Torts / Delicts [LNV], Criminal law & procedure [LNF], Private / Civil law: general works [LNB], Comparative law [LAM], Law [L]