Corporate criminal liability and fundamental rights of legal entities
4:00pm - 6:00pm /
Wednesday 3rd December 2025
/ Venue: Lecture Theatre D Central Teaching Hub
Type: Seminar /
Category: Department
- Marketing Recruitment and Events Team
- Admission: Free to event. Please register via the booking link.
- Event website
- Book now
Add this event to my calendar
Click on "Create a calendar file" and your browser will download a .ics file for this event.
Microsoft Outlook: Download the file, double-click it to open it in Outlook, then click on "Save & Close" to save it to your calendar. If that doesn't work go into Outlook, click on the File tab, then on Open & Export, then Open Calendar. Select your .ics file then click on "Save & Close".
Google Calendar: download the file, then go into your calendar. On the left where it says "Other calendars" click on the arrow icon and then click on Import calendar. Click on Browse and select the .ics file, then click on Import.
Apple Calendar: The file may open automatically with an option to save it to your calendar. If not, download the file, then you can either drag it to Calendar or import the file by going to File >Import > Import and choosing the .ics file.
Bibliographical note:
Sebastian Rǎdulețu. Judge at the European Court of Human Rights (elected in 2023 in respect of Romania), Professor of Criminal Law and Human Rights Law at the University of Craiova (Romania) and Honorary Fellow at Pembroke College, University of Oxford. Before becoming an international judge, he used to be a lawyer (1998-2023) practicing at national level and before the ECHR. In this capacity he was admitted on the List of Counsel of the International Criminal Court (2018-2023). He was also a Farthing scholar and Retained Lecturer at Pembroke College, University of Oxford (2015-2018) and a visiting scholar at Columbia Law School, NYC (2018), HEC Liège (2015-2023) and Queen Mary School of Law, University of London (2012). He holds a PhD (DPhil) in Law (University of Oxford), but also a MSt in international human rights law (University of Oxford) and postgraduate diplomas in fundamental rights (Paris X Nanterre) and in EU Law (King’s College London).
Short description of topic of my presentation:
The phenomenon of corporate crime has created a preoccupation among states and within the international community as to how these acts, which potentially produce significant harm, should be remedied in a criminal law context. The central problem of corporate criminal liability is how to adapt to group entities the rules of a system designed to deal with individual offenders. This process of including organisations in the ambit of criminal law could jeopardise its specific principles.
The objective of this presentation is to briefly assess the main legal doctrines of corporate criminal liability and to determine the most suitable models that are efficient in tackling corporate crime but, in the same time, protect the fundamental rights of persons involved. The main criterion for such assessment is the respect for the core principles of criminal law such as the principle of legality and the rule of law, the principle of fair labelling or the presumption of innocence.
In this context, a special attention will be payed to the criminal liability of corporations at EU level because the respect of the core criminal law principles is particularly important for EU criminal law. This is “a field of law in transition”, trying to overcome the opposition of Member States whose main critique is based on the same fundamental principles of criminal law.
Sebastian Rǎdulețu. Judge at the European Court of Human Rights (elected in 2023 in respect of Romania), Professor of Criminal Law and Human Rights Law at the University of Craiova (Romania) and Honorary Fellow at Pembroke College, University of Oxford. Before becoming an international judge, he used to be a lawyer (1998-2023) practicing at national level and before the ECHR. In this capacity he was admitted on the List of Counsel of the International Criminal Court (2018-2023). He was also a Farthing scholar and Retained Lecturer at Pembroke College, University of Oxford (2015-2018) and a visiting scholar at Columbia Law School, NYC (2018), HEC Liège (2015-2023) and Queen Mary School of Law, University of London (2012). He holds a PhD (DPhil) in Law (University of Oxford), but also a MSt in international human rights law (University of Oxford) and postgraduate diplomas in fundamental rights (Paris X Nanterre) and in EU Law (King’s College London).
Short description of topic of my presentation:
The phenomenon of corporate crime has created a preoccupation among states and within the international community as to how these acts, which potentially produce significant harm, should be remedied in a criminal law context. The central problem of corporate criminal liability is how to adapt to group entities the rules of a system designed to deal with individual offenders. This process of including organisations in the ambit of criminal law could jeopardise its specific principles.
The objective of this presentation is to briefly assess the main legal doctrines of corporate criminal liability and to determine the most suitable models that are efficient in tackling corporate crime but, in the same time, protect the fundamental rights of persons involved. The main criterion for such assessment is the respect for the core principles of criminal law such as the principle of legality and the rule of law, the principle of fair labelling or the presumption of innocence.
In this context, a special attention will be payed to the criminal liability of corporations at EU level because the respect of the core criminal law principles is particularly important for EU criminal law. This is “a field of law in transition”, trying to overcome the opposition of Member States whose main critique is based on the same fundamental principles of criminal law.