Academic literature on the topic 'Politica penale'

The Pre-Trial Chamber is an unprecedented institution in international criminal justice, which lies at the heart of the preliminary phase of the proceedings before the International Criminal Court as a compromise achieved at the Rome Conference. The feature of Pre-Trial Chamber as "check and balance" of the autonomy granted to the Prosecutor especially in the context of the trigger mechanism of the Court's jurisdiction based on the Prosecutor's proprio motu action seems to reveal the political nature of Pre-Trial Chamber s standing within the Court. Although never put into practice to date, the judicial review power conferred on the Chamber may potentially enable it to steer the Court s policy in accordance with the principle of complementarity. Moreover, the Pre-Trial Chamber is intended to meet due process requirements from the beginning of the proceedings. In this respect, although not entirely comparable to the juge d instruction of the inquisitorial tradition, the Pre-Trial Chamber is largely inspired by the French and Italian legal systems rather than by the common law judicial model which traditionally characterizes international criminal trials, where no interplay between the judge and the parties is provided during pre-trial proceedings. In fact, the Chamber has so far actively played its role of ensuring proceedings fairness, favoring a broad and teleological interpretation of the Rome Statute and of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence. Through the analysis of the travaux préparatoires of the International Criminal Court and of the Statute and Rules relevant provisions as well as of the early case-law of the Court, the work aims to discuss whether the Pre-Trial Chamber represents a guarantee of the Court s policy rather than of international criminal proceedings legitimacy or either.

La tesi di dottorato indaga il profilo della corruzione “in ambito politico”. Questa tematica – quantomeno dagli anni ’90 in poi – ritorna ciclicamente al centro del dibattito pubblico, in seguito ai sempre più numerosi scandali di corruzione che coinvolgono i vertici politici delle istituzioni dello Stato e che, indipendentemente dall’esito giudiziario a cui pervengono, ingenerano una situazione di grande instabilità, oltre che una crescente e complessiva sfiducia nell’operato della “rappresentanza politica”. Il lavoro – dopo una breve introduzione sulla disciplina vigente dei reati contro la pubblica amministrazione – si pone il problema dell’adeguatezza dello strumentario penale vigente a trovare applicazione con riferimento a soggetti, genericamente definiti in avvio del lavoro, come ricoprenti incarico politico/elettivo. Con tale termine ci si riferisce in particolare a quegli agenti pubblici che detengono un ufficio caratterizzato, vuoi dalla particolare ampiezza de poteri correlata all’investitura popolare (parlamentari, consiglieri regionali, presidenti di Regione, sindaci), vuoi da un rapporto fiduciario con soggetti “eletti” (ministri ed assessori). Tale interrogativo è suggerito dalla comparazione con l’ordinamento tedesco dove – a differenza del codice penale italiano – non si sposa una concezione monolitica di pubblica amministrazione, ma si differenzia dall’insieme dei pubblici ufficiali (Amtsträger) i c.d. Mandatsträger, ovvero gli agenti pubblici che, essendo stati eletti, ricoprono un incarico per mandato. A quest’ultimi lo Strafgesetzbuch riserva un’autonoma figura incriminatrice di corruzione prevista dal § 108e StGB (Bestechlichkeit und Bestechung von Mandatsträgern) e caratterizzata – come si mostra nel dettaglio – da elementi peculiari e da un campo di applicazione più ristretto rispetto a quello delle omologhe fattispecie destinate ai pubblici ufficiali. Questa importante scelta del legislatore tedesco – lungi dall’essere il prodotto della volontà della stessa classe politica di garantirsi un regime penalistico di favore – affonda le proprie radici in una profonda discussione dogmatica e politico-criminale che pone seri ostacoli ad una equiparazione dell’eletto con il funzionario pubblico. Si affianca all’illustrazione di questi argomenti un approfondito studio di diritto costituzionale e amministrativo italiano sulle peculiarità e le prerogative della funzione svolta dagli agenti pubblici sopramenzionati. Il lavoro dedica quindi ampio spazio all’esame dei diversi problemi applicativi cui si espone una concezione monolitica di pubblica amministrazione con specifico riguardo ai reati di corruzione. Nella parte conclusiva, in una prospettiva de jure condendo e nel paragone stretto con le scelte d’incriminazione dello Strafgesetzbuch, si esplora l’opportunità di uno statuto penale differenziato dell’attività politica, proponendo un trattamento specifico di tali soggetti dal punto di vista delle figure incriminatrici loro riservate, in modo da permettere una migliore sussunzione dei fatti a questi ascritti, che tenga effettivamente conto delle prerogative e delle peculiarità garantite dalla Costituzione alla loro funzione.<br>This PhD dissertation analyzes bribery and corruption “in the political field”. This subject – at least from the ‘90s – cyclically returns on the public debate stage, due to more and more corruption scandals involving politicians who were appointed in top Italian institutional positions. These scandals, regardless of their legal outcomes, created severe political uncertainties, as long as an increasing skepticism about representatives and their activities. After a short introduction on the current Italian regulation related to crimes against Public Administration, this work tries to address the problem of adequacy and utility of Criminal Law redress for acts committed by persons who have a political or electoral mandate. Representatives and some public servants hold an office that is characterized by very wide powers, arising from a direct relationship with the electorate (as legislative assemblies representatives – both at national and regional level – majors or Presidents of Italian Regions) or from an appointment by someone who as a a direct relationship with the electorate (e.g. Ministers or local Governments Secretaries). This adequacy and utility question comes from a Comparative Legal research, which has been performed in order to write this work taking the advantage of the German experience. Differing from Italian Law, German Bribery and Corruption Law doesn’t shape Public Administration as a monolith: the StGB (Strafgesetzbuch, the German Criminal Code) distinguishes between public officers (Amtsträger) and the so called Mandatsträger, mandate representatives who have been elected. For the latter, the Strafgesetzbuch provides a very specific type of Corruption, punished under § 108e StGB (Bestechlichkeit und Bestechung von Mandatsträgern), which is characterized by very peculiar elements and a scope narrower than those of paragraphs punishing public officers Corruption. Beside this Comparative Legal study, this dissertation analyzes in depth the specific aspects and functions of the above mentioned mandate representatives and appointed public servants in the Italian Legal System. The research on this point has been carried out from an interdisciplinary point of view, taking into consideration Constitutional, Administrative and Criminal Law. Then, this work points out many problems arising from the Italian monolithic concept of Public Administration, in particular those related to Bribery and Corruption. Finally, in a de jure condendo perspective and benefiting from the suggestions given by the German experience, this dissertation proposes possible reforms that would introduce a different Criminal Law regulation for political activities, with specific Bribery and Corruption crimes punishing those who have an electoral mandate or have been appointed to a public office by them.

La ricerca prende l’abbrivio dalla constatazione della crescente importanza acquisita, nel panorama delle fonti penalistiche, dal fenomeno dell’autonormazione: prodotto del diritto penale post-moderno consistente nell’autoimposizione, da parte dei destinatari stessi della norma, di precetti comportamentali in chiave criminal-preventiva. Oltre al ruolo ambivalente del principio di legalità penale (effetto e causa, al contempo, del fenomeno qui preso in considerazione), l’interesse del penalista per l’approfondimento scientifico del fenomeno è sollecitato dal potenziale che quest’ultimo rivela come alternativa (sostitutiva o integrata) rispetto al diritto penale. Il primo capitolo è dedicato alla ricostruzione delle cause che hanno dato origine al fenomeno, all’uopo ripartite in due macro-categorie: (i) le cause di ordine generale, per l’enucleazione delle quali è stata condotta una ricerca che spazia nelle materie sociologiche, economiche e giusfilosofiche; (ii) le cause di natura giuridica, che sono state investigate considerando sia le manifestazioni comuni all’intero ordinamento giuridico, sia quelle specifiche della penalistica, in cui la crisi del principio della riserva di legge e il declino del diritto penale classico assumono un’importanza cruciale. Nel secondo capitolo, il focus dell’analisi si concentra sulla dimensione strutturale del paradigma autonormativo per come emerso nelle sue principali manifestazioni e nelle concettualizzazioni teoriche maturate soprattutto grazie all’approfondimento riservato al fenomeno della Self-Regulation dagli studiosi di area anglosassone. La paradigmatica dell’autonormazione viene scrutinata tanto nelle sue singole componenti costitutive statiche, quanto nei suoi moti dinamici come strategia regolatoria all’interno dell’ordinamento. La ricerca si sposta nel terzo capitolo dalla struttura alla funzione, con l’obiettivo di ricavare i criteri di politica-criminale strumentali all’impiego dell’autonormazione nel sistema penale. A tal fine, sono state esplorate le possibili relazioni interordinamentali di raccordo tra sistemi autonormativi e ordinamento statale, applicando una metodologia mutuata dall’impostazione di Santi Romano ma ambientata sul terreno del diritto penale e delle sue alternative. Nel quarto capitolo l’indagine si rivolge verso i più eminenti esempi di autonormazione manifestatisi nell’ordinamento italiano: i modelli organizzativi ex D. Lgs. 231 del 2001; i piani per la prevenzione della corruzione nella P.A.; le linee guida medico-chirurgiche per lo svolgimento delle attività sanitaria. Oltre a una disamina ricognitiva della disciplina di questi sub-sistemi normativi, i tre banchi di prova vengono scandagliati in chiave struttural-funzionalistica alla luce dei criteri di analisi illustrati nel secondo capitolo e ricavati nel terzo. Il capitolo 5 chiude il lavoro proiettando i risultati delle ricerche sul piano della teoria del reato, per verificare quale impatto abbia/possa avere l’autonormazione sulla dogmatica. Dopo aver passato in rassegna le possibili ricadute sulle diverse categorie penalistiche, la chiosa finale valorizza il potenziale del diritto riflessivo come candidato ideale per la concretizzazione della clausola di extrema ratio in materia penale. L’uso dell’autonormazione come strumento alternativo rispetto al diritto penale viene ritenuto, infatti, il profilo applicativo più promettente e degno di essere ulteriormente esplorato.<br>One of the crucial challenges of Criminal Law in the new millennium is to deal with the complexity of contemporary society. The traditional approach based on the State monopoly on criminal matters keeps abreast no longer with the scientific-technological sophistication and the rate of changes in criminal behavior in the era of globalization. In this scenario, we witness the rise of Self-Regulation as an auxiliary tool of crime prevention, whose main goal is to fill the vacuum and to compensate for the rapid obsolescence of state legislation. Compliance Programs, Anti-Bribery Plans, Clinical Guidelines are some of the elements of a diverse constellation of cases in which preventive measures, behavioral rules, surveillance, and sanctions are issued and enforced by a legislator who coincides with the recipient, and which is often a private actor. Nevertheless, the ambivalence of Self-Regulation lies in the fact that – in the face of some positive externalities promised – this paradigm could jeopardize some of the fundamental principles of Criminal Law. The aim of this work is to provide a critical analysis of such phenomenon in order to verify the compatibility of Self-Regulation with the Rule of Law and to assess its efficacy in deterring and detecting misconducts.

One of the ways by which the legal system has responded to different sets of problems is the blurring of the traditional boundaries of criminal law, both procedural and substantive. This study aims to explore under what conditions does this trend lead to the improvement of society's welfare by focusing on two distinguishing sanctions in criminal law, incarceration and social stigma. In analyzing how incarceration affects the incentive to an individual to violate a legal standard, we considered the crucial role of the time constraint. This aspect has not been fully explored in the literature on law and economics, especially with respect to the analysis of the beneficiality of imposing either a fine or a prison term. We observed that that when individuals are heterogeneous with respect to wealth and wage income, and when the level of activity can be considered a normal good, only the middle wage and middle income groups can be adequately deterred by a fixed fines alone regime. The existing literature only considers the case of the very poor, deemed as judgment proof. However, since imprisonment is a socially costly way to deprive individuals of their time, other alternatives may be sought such as the imposition of discriminatory monetary fine, partial incapacitation and other alternative sanctions. According to traditional legal theory, the reason why criminal law is obeyed is not mainly due to the monetary sanctions but to the stigma arising from the community’s moral condemnation that accompanies conviction or merely suspicion. However, it is not sufficiently clear whether social stigma always accompanies a criminal conviction. We addressed this issue by identifying the circumstances wherein a criminal conviction carries an additional social stigma. Our results show that social stigma is seen to accompany a conviction under the following conditions: first, when the law coincides with the society's social norms; and second, when the prohibited act provides information on an unobservable attribute or trait of an individual -- crucial in establishing or maintaining social relationships beyond mere economic relationships. Thus, even if the social planner does not impose the social sanction directly, the impact of social stigma can still be influenced by the probability of conviction and the level of the monetary fine imposed as well as the varying degree of correlation between the legal standard violated and the social traits or attributes of the individual. In this respect, criminal law serves as an institution that facilitates cognitive efficiency in the process of imposing the social sanction to the extent that the rest of society is boundedly rational and use judgment heuristics. Paradoxically, using criminal law in order to invoke stigma for the violation of a legal standard may also serve to undermine its strength. To sum, the results of our analysis reveal that the scope of criminal law is narrow both for the purposes of deterrence and cognitive efficiency. While there are certain conditions where the enforcement of criminal law may lead to an increase in social welfare, particularly with respect to incarceration and stigma, we have also identified the channels through which they could affect behavior. Since such mechanisms can be replicated in less costly ways, society should first try or seek to employ these legal institutions before turning to criminal law as a last resort.

One of the ways by which the legal system has responded to different sets of problems is the blurring of the traditional boundaries of criminal law, both procedural and substantive. This study aims to explore under what conditions does this trend lead to the improvement of society's welfare by focusing on two distinguishing sanctions in criminal law, incarceration and social stigma. In analyzing how incarceration affects the incentive to an individual to violate a legal standard, we considered the crucial role of the time constraint. This aspect has not been fully explored in the literature on law and economics, especially with respect to the analysis of the beneficiality of imposing either a fine or a prison term. We observed that that when individuals are heterogeneous with respect to wealth and wage income, and when the level of activity can be considered a normal good, only the middle wage and middle income groups can be adequately deterred by a fixed fines alone regime. The existing literature only considers the case of the very poor, deemed as judgment proof. However, since imprisonment is a socially costly way to deprive individuals of their time, other alternatives may be sought such as the imposition of discriminatory monetary fine, partial incapacitation and other alternative sanctions. According to traditional legal theory, the reason why criminal law is obeyed is not mainly due to the monetary sanctions but to the stigma arising from the community’s moral condemnation that accompanies conviction or merely suspicion. However, it is not sufficiently clear whether social stigma always accompanies a criminal conviction. We addressed this issue by identifying the circumstances wherein a criminal conviction carries an additional social stigma. Our results show that social stigma is seen to accompany a conviction under the following conditions: first, when the law coincides with the society's social norms; and second, when the prohibited act provides information on an unobservable attribute or trait of an individual -- crucial in establishing or maintaining social relationships beyond mere economic relationships. Thus, even if the social planner does not impose the social sanction directly, the impact of social stigma can still be influenced by the probability of conviction and the level of the monetary fine imposed as well as the varying degree of correlation between the legal standard violated and the social traits or attributes of the individual. In this respect, criminal law serves as an institution that facilitates cognitive efficiency in the process of imposing the social sanction to the extent that the rest of society is boundedly rational and use judgment heuristics. Paradoxically, using criminal law in order to invoke stigma for the violation of a legal standard may also serve to undermine its strength. To sum, the results of our analysis reveal that the scope of criminal law is narrow both for the purposes of deterrence and cognitive efficiency. While there are certain conditions where the enforcement of criminal law may lead to an increase in social welfare, particularly with respect to incarceration and stigma, we have also identified the channels through which they could affect behavior. Since such mechanisms can be replicated in less costly ways, society should first try or seek to employ these legal institutions before turning to criminal law as a last resort.

The thesis argues that there are no good reasons to justify the liability of legal persons, for the endangerment or ham to one of us, should be classified as criminal offense, even when the norm of unfulfilled conduct is precisely a penalty one. To assume that a company might be punish for its ex-crime participation does not imply that it should be penalized, with a criminal offense. The reason for this is that one of the fundamental elements of the penal system, the standard of reasonable doubt, is not justified in the attribution of responsibility of moral entities. In addition, in the criminal procedure, as it does not happen in other matters, the so-called search for truth is only one of the components - necessary, but not sufficient - of the adjudicative activity. In criminal law, we needed a special configuration between the balance of other necessary interests, such as social peace (civility), human dignity (otherness), costs and the stability of decisions that imply that not necessarily the true decision is the correct. To this we should added, more than outstandingly, the moral imperative to prevent the conviction of innocent people. This means that the regulation of standard of proof is influenced by epistemic, counter-epistemic and extra-epistemic reasons, which limit or condition the evidence of the jury or trial finder, making the task of imputation difficult. Therefore, the different processes (criminal, administrative and civil) have different epistemic, extra-epistemic and counter-epistemic rules. In the case of legal persons, there are no reasons to be applied the rules of the criminal procedure. In fact, the structure of the criminal justice system, its principles and guarantees, certainly allow that someone who is actually guilty, that is, who committed the crime, to escape the punish, which indirectly increases the incentives of other possible offenders to commit crimes, but above all, it generates an impact of impunity on the victims. If we considered that criminal law has the mission of protecting the most important human’s values, the previous trade-off would be debatable with respect to an entity that, basically, has an economic ethos and that does not necessarily share fundamental human values, let alone recognize it - because he does not recognize the victim as a moral alter ego. Society should design policies to reduce conducts classified as a crime, not incentivize it, even not directly. The thesis concludes that legal entities are not worthy of deserving our criminal law, they do not deserve that the State limits itself, as it does with natural persons, in the use of the ius puniendi, either to control the sources of risk or to sanction the harms they cause to people.<br>La tesis sostiene que no hay razones suficientes que justifiquen que la responsabilidad de las personas jurídicas, por la puesta en peligro o la lesión de un bien jurídico, deba imputarse a título de una infracción penal, aun cuando la norma de comportamiento incumplida sea, precisamente, una penal. Decir respecto de una empresa que se le sanciona por su participación ex crimine no implica afirmar que se le deba sancionar penalmente. La razón para ello es que uno de los componentes fundamentales del sistema penal, a saber, el estándar de la duda razonable, no se justifica en la atribución de responsabilidad de los entes morales. Y ello porque en el proceso penal, como no sucede en otras materias, la así llamada búsqueda de la verdad es sólo uno de los componentes –necesario, mas no suficiente– de la actividad adjudicativa. En el Derecho penal se genera una especial configuración balanceada con otros intereses necesarios del proceso, como por ejemplo la paz social (civilidad), la dignidad humana (alteridad), los costos y la estabilidad de las decisiones que implican que no necesariamente la decisión verdadera sea la correcta. A eso se debe agregar, de manera más que destacada, el imperativo moral de prevenir la condena de personas inocentes. Ello tiene como consecuencia que la regulación de las pruebas esté influenciada por razones epistémicas, contraepistémicas y extraepistémicas, que limitan o condicionan el acervo probatorio del adjudicador, dificultando la labor de imputación. Por lo mismo, los distintos procesos (penales, administrativos y civiles) tienen distintas reglas epistémicas, extraepistémicas y contraepistémicas. En el caso de las personas jurídicas no existen razones para que respecto de ellas se apliquen las reglas propias de un proceso penal. De hecho, la estructura del sistema de justicia criminal, sus principios y garantías procesales, ciertamente permite que algunos fácticamente culpables, es decir, que cometieron efectivamente el delito, escapen de la condena, lo que aumenta indirectamente los incentivos de otros eventuales infractores a cometer delitos, pero sobre todo, genera un impacto de impunidad en las víctimas. Si se considera que el Derecho penal tiene por misión proteger los bienes jurídicos más importantes, el anterior trade–off sería discutible respecto de un ente que básicamente tiene un ethos económico y que no necesariamente comparte los valores fundamentales humanos, y menos va reconocer –porque no reconoce– a la víctima como un alter ego moral. La sociedad debiese diseñar políticas para reducir las conductas calificadas como delito, no incentivarlas, siquiera indirectamente. La tesis concluye que las empresas no son dignas de merecer nuestro Derecho penal, de que el Estado se (auto)limite, como lo hace con las personas naturales, para usar el ius puniendi, sea para controlar las fuentes de riesgo sea para sancionar los perjuicios a bienes jurídicos relevantes.

La ricerca si propone di approfondire il tema della conoscibilità del precetto penale sotto il particolare profilo della percezione dell’offesa corrispondente al tipo di illecito. L’indagine è suddivisa in tre parti. La prima parte si occupa di ricostruire storicamente la disciplina dell’ignoranza della legge e di inquadrarne i contenuti rispetto al sistema penale. Particolare attenzione viene dedicata alla “storica” sentenza della Corte costituzionale, n. 364 del 1988 e ai suoi riflessi sull’ordinamento. Nella seconda parte, si è cercato di tracciare un collegamento tra il principio di colpevolezza e quello di offensività, con specifico riferimento alla conoscibilità del precetto. La ricerca si sviluppa in due prospettive: quella dogmatica e quella politico-criminale. In primo luogo, il tema della coscienza dell’offesa è stato approfondito in relazione agli elementi del reato; successivamente, si è cercato di definire una prospettiva politico-criminale che valorizzi la percezione del disvalore penale del fatto, quale condizione necessaria alla conoscibilità del precetto, da cui derivare un criterio selettivo per la legislazione in materia penale. La terza parte è stata dedicata alla verifica delle indicazioni ricavate dall’indagine rispetto all’ambito disciplinare rappresentato dalla tutela penale dell’ambiente. Sono stati evidenziati i profili di criticità della disciplina rispetto ai principi di offensività e di colpevolezza, con particolare riferimento alle occasioni in cui sembri essere compromessa la certezza del diritto. La scelta dello specifico ambito disciplinare, cui rivolgere l’approfondimento dipende proprio dalla povertà delle fattispecie in materia ambientale sotto il profilo dell’offesa. Pertanto, sulla base di questo assunto, l’indagine ha cercato di trarre conferme all’impostazione di fondo della ricerca, in relazione sia alla definizione del bene giuridico “ambiente”, sia alle modalità di tutela più frequenti. In conclusione, sono state proposte alcune indicazioni che consentano di offrire alla materia ambientale una tutela che garantisca l’afferrabilità dell’offesa e, quindi, la conoscibilità del precetto. Considerando questo requisito essenziale ai fini del rispetto dei principi su cui l’ordinamento penale è fondato, è stata valutata l’opportunità di ricorrere a forme di tutela diverse e, in particolare, a quella amministrativa, quando tale condizione non risulti rispettata.<br>The thesis is aimed at studying the theme of knowledge about criminal norm particularly concerning the perception of offense correspondent to the types of wrongdoing. The enquiry has been divided into three parts. Firstly it has been examined, with a historical prospective, the discipline of ignorance of law, focusing on its contents with regard to the criminal justice system. Particular attention has been paid to the historical sentence of the Constitutional Court n. 364 of the 1988 and to the effects of such a paramount decision into the criminal justice system. The second part has been dedicated to draw a connection between culpability and harm principle, with particular concern to limiting the application of criminal law. The research has developed into two perspectives: a dogmatic one and one of criminal policy. Primarily, it has considered the key point of the knowledge of the offense as regards to the elements of the crime; subsequently, it has meant to define a criminal policy perspective that enhances the perception of the criminal disvalue of the fact as a necessary condition to the knowledge of the criminal norm from which drawn a selective criterion for penal legislation. Lastly, the study has been centred upon the criminal implications deriving from the violation of the environmental law, which is characterized, in Italy, by the uncertainty of the discipline due also to the intangibility of the offence. The dissertation has intended to highlight some critical profiles of the regulation in respect to the harm principle and the principle of culpability; specifically, it has delved into the situations where the certainty of law appeared to be compromise. The option for such a specific area of legislation depends on the deficiency that distinguishes these cases of the environmental legislation from the point of view of the harm. Furthermore, related to this, the enquiry has attempted to gain some confirmations on this statement of the problem. Both the definition of the environmental interest and the most frequent techniques of safeguard have been object of a close examination. In conclusion, this thesis intends to offer some indications concerning the environmental matter about a system of safeguard which guarantees the perception of the harm and, thus, the knowledge of the criminal norm. Considering this requirement as an essential one for the sake of the principles of criminal justice system, this research has been evaluating the opportunity to have recourse to different kinds of legal safeguards, like an administrative one, in particular, when the condition expressed above appear not to be accomplished.

The reopening of judgements of crimes against humanity committed by the last dictatorship in Argentina, poses again the question of the criminal liability of who, occupying hierarchical positions in the State, did not have direct contact with the attributed facts. Of course, criminal liability is not in discussion, but the way in which the superiors take part in the crime with their subordinates. From the times of Military Juntas Judgement, Argentine justice has followed the theory of domination of the act because of the domination of the will by means of an organization, in order to support the indirect perpetration of the superiors. This theory poses several problems, among which is crucial, the range of the control of the subordinateʼs will by the superior. Nevertheless, this theory, which is not majority, has been adopted by the Bundesgerichtshof and the International Criminal Court. The complexity of this theoretical construction, the effects of its applications on economical crimes, its dependence on empirical factors and, fundamentally, the possibility of reaching reasonable solutions by other ways, lead us to question its utility and applications in tackling the problem of criminal liability of political and military hierarchies of the State in crimes against humanity.