The American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code and European Criminal Law

Abstract

It has been suggested that the American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code might serve as a model for a European Model Penal Code, or at least for the project of assembling general principles of European criminal law. This paper presents a critical analysis of the Model Penal Code project, paying particular attention to the form of the project, rather than its substance, on the assumption that the idea, and the drafting, of the Model Penal Code would be of greater interest to a European criminal law project than its content, a systematic and comprehensive general part and a representative special part of “American criminal law.”

Keywords: European Criminal Law, American Criminal Law, Model Penal Code, Criminal Codification, Criminal Law Reform, American Law Institute, European Law Institute, EU Law

JEL Classification: K14, K33