Basic Theory of Criminal Law: Deterrence by Norm in Liberal Democracy

Michiaki Ozaki

Born in 1952 in Fukui City, Japan, the author graduated from the Faculty of Law, University of Tokyo (LL.B.) and Harvard Law School (LL.M.). He worked for many years in public prosecutors’ offices as a prosecutor and as an attorney for the Criminal Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Justice. He was involved in the investigation, prosecution and trial of

various crimes, including high-profile bribery cases, as well as criminal legislation and the negotiation of treaties such as the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. He also served as Director General of the Correction Bureau of the Ministry of Justice. Based on this extensive experience in the actual workings of the criminal justice system, as well as in-depth and continuous theoretical study and analysis of both substantive and procedural criminal law, he has published many articles in periodicals, including early works such as ＂The Science of Sentencing＂ (1989) and ＂Investigation of Organized Crime in the United States of America--Focusing on the Investigation of Federal Crime＂ (1995), which are included in this book. He published the Japanese version of this book in 2020 with the intention of proposing a basic theory of criminal law that is not based on dogmatic principles but on the scientific and empirical analysis of norm and utility, hoping that it will serve as a basis for further discussion and study in this field.