Criminal Justice in the Prism of Human Rights

Criminal law occupies a central role in the “prism” of human rights, given the relevant impact of trial and punishment on the personal sphere of individuals, which may be instrumentalised in the name of security claims for political purposes. It is no coincidence that during the Age of Enlightenment the main fundamental guarantees of criminal law were enshrined in human rights declarations, with an approach now widely accepted at an international level. In fact, the “dialogue” between national and supranational Courts in this domain has been a key element in contemporary times in the development of criminal law, leading not only to the implementation of fundamental guarantees – even through the redefinition of their field of application – but also to the promotion of criminalisation in order to protect certain human rights.

This volume builds upon the contributions to the X AIDP Symposium for Young Penalists, which was held on 27 and 28 October 2022 at the Department of Legal Studies of the University of Bologna. During five panels moderated by experts, young academics from eleven different countries discussed the current role of human rights in criminal justice.

Francesco Mazzacuva is Associate Professor in Criminal Law at the University of Parma, where he was PhD graduate in 2012 and postdoctoral research fellow from 2014 to 2016, when he was appointed ordinary magistrate, serving as a judge at the Court of Modena until 2019. He coordinated the activities of the Young Penalists of the Italian group of the AIDP since 2015 and, at the 20th World Congress of the AIDP held in Rome in November 2019, he was elected President of the Young Penalists Committee.

Miren Odriozola Gurrutxaga is Lecturer in Criminal Law at the University of the Basque Country, where she obtained her PhD in Law in 2015. She is also a member of the Basque Institute of Criminology since 2015. Since the 20th World Congress of the AIDP in November 2019, she is a member of the Young Penalists Committee.

Nicola Recchia is Senior Researcher in Criminal Law at the University of Trieste. In 2017 he obtained a Ph.D. in Criminal Law from the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich and the University of Ferrara. He has then worked as a Post-doc researcher at the University of Ferrara in 2017 and at the Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main from 2018 to 2022. Since the 20th World Congress of the AIDP in November 2019, he is member of the Young Penalists Committee.

Alessandra Santangelo is Research Fellow in Criminal Law at the University of Bologna, where she obtained her Ph.D. in Legal Science in 2020. Since then, she has been working as a Post-doc researcher for national and international projects, being Technical Coordinator of a DG Justice Programme. In 2013, she obtained an LLM, with specialisation in EU Law, from King’s College London.