Frontier Issues in the General Theory of Criminal Law

Author: Wei Dong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: This book is a teaching material with distinct characteristics designed for graduate students majoring in criminal law. As the title suggests, it primarily explores several cutting-edge theories and legal practice issues in the identification and punishment of specific crimes. It is fair to say that this is a field of great theoretical and practical significance, capable of sparking significant interest among researchers. Law is a highly practical discipline, and criminal law, as a branch of law, is even more so. Therefore, I have always advocated for the close integration of theory and practice in criminal law research, emphasizing a rational, rigorous, and pragmatic writing style. It is essential to regularly focus on the forefront of criminal law theory and highly value innovative research on criminal law practice issues, striving to address practical challenges in criminal legislation and adjudication. This "scholarly attitude" is increasingly recognized and upheld by my academic peers. Associate Professor Wei Dong, a Ph.D. in law whom I once supervised, embodies this principle, working tirelessly and persistently to achieve substantial research results. When Wei Dong invited me to write the preface for his new work, Key Issues in Several Frontiers of Specific Criminal Law, I happily accepted and am delighted to recommend this book to scholars and practitioners in the field.
As a textbook for graduate students in criminal law, this book strives to maintain relative completeness in its structural arrangement. The book is divided into three main parts: an Introduction, an Upper Part, and a Lower Part, which respectively examine the fundamental theories of specific criminal law, crimes against individual legal interests, and crimes against social, state, and national legal interests. While this structural design differs from the typical design of most criminal law textbooks in China, it aligns with the rule-of-law spirit of modern society that emphasizes the protection of rights, making it inherently reasonable.
The Introduction focuses on the fundamental theories of specific criminal law, covering topics such as the research object of specific criminal law, the conflict of specific articles in the criminal code, and humanistic concepts in modern criminal justice. This arrangement in the Introduction offers certain innovations. Notably, regarding the conflict of specific articles in the criminal code, the author proposes that such conflicts should be theoretically categorized into inclusive conflict, intersecting conflict, and dual conflict, briefly discussing the concepts and relationships among the three types. The author also points out the shortcomings and deficiencies in the theoretical understanding of legal article conflict. Whether this academic insight is scientifically and rationally sound may still be subject to further study, but the author's spirit of theoretical exploration is commendable.
The author also emphasizes the need to strengthen the protection of defendant rights during criminal justice proceedings, advocating for a civil libertarian criminal law perspective that prioritizes defendant rights, a legal certainty perspective rooted in the principle of legality, and a humanitarian corrective view that maintains the neutrality of criminal law values. These academic insights address current issues and provoke deep reflection, making them worth attention.
The Upper Part focuses on several crimes against individual legal interests, including five specific offenses: intentional homicide, rape, the illegal deprivation of citizens' freedom of religious belief, embezzlement, and theft. The Lower Part focuses on several crimes against social, state, and national legal interests, including contract fraud, insider trading and leaking confidential information, organized crime, international terrorism, drug offenses, traffic accidents, bribery, bribery by corporate and enterprise personnel, organized prostitution, and incitement crimes. The author deliberately selects these difficult-to-resolve crimes and issues in criminal practice for research, focusing on practical discussions on theoretical disputes. This approach not only systematically summarizes various academic viewpoints in the field, helping graduate students understand the current state of research, but also presents the author's own innovative and unique insights, inspiring researchers and achieving the goal of education and cultivation.
At the same time, this book also holds significant reference value for judicial practice. The issues discussed in the book are closely tied to difficult and major problems that have emerged or may emerge in judicial practice. For example, regarding intentional homicide, the author examines issues such as the refusal to save a spouse in a life-threatening situation, the emergency defense of life against life, euthanasia, and HIV/AIDS. In the context of rape, the author explores marital rape and fraudulent sexual coercion. Regarding embezzlement, the author discusses issues related to lost or buried property. In theft, the author addresses the use of theft, unit theft, and the standard for completing or failing to complete theft. In contract fraud, the author examines issues related to the content and form of contracts, as well as litigation deception. Regarding organized crime and terrorism, the author discusses issues of identification. In traffic accidents, the author addresses the application of the "death caused by escape" provision. In bribery, the author explores issues related to sexual bribery. Based on providing relevant academic background knowledge, the author engages in fruitful discussions and offers personal academic insights, thereby helping judicial practitioners better understand and handle related issues.
Of course, this book has some shortcomings. First, the issues of specific criminal law discussed are not entirely comprehensive, as the author mentions in the postscript that many unresolved criminal issues have not been systematically studied in this book. Second, the author's research on some of the issues listed in the book lacks in-depth exploration, with some topics only outlined without detailed discussion, and certain viewpoints still requiring further research and justification.
However, overall, this book remains a specialized work in criminal law with a high academic level.