Can someone respond to a disccusion?
Commonwealth and International Perspectives on Self-Defence, Duress, and Necessity
This is a very interesting article to read because I was not aware of the context of the topic, so this was something new to me. This article talks about the development of the criminal code of 1995 which later became the Commonwealth code and the ratification by Australia of the statute of international criminal court and 2002. The statue of international criminal court or ICC statue was an international court put in the place to deal with "Crimes against humanity, genocide, war crimes and aggression". The article continue to go on to talk different topics such as self-defense, duress, and necessity. The one that stood out to me the most was self-defense. Self-Defence is defined is Section 10.4 of the Commonwealth Code provides as follows:
(1) A person is not criminally responsible for an offence if he or she carries out the conduct constituting the offence in self-defence.
(2) A person carries out conduct in self-defence if and only if he or she believes the conduct is necessary:
(a) to defend himself or herself or another person; or
(b) to prevent or terminate the unlawful imprisonment of himself or herself or another person; or
(c) to protect property from unlawful appropriation, destruction, damage or interference; or
(d) to prevent criminal trespass to any land or premises; or
(e) to remove from any land or premises a person who is committing criminal trespass; and the conduct is a reasonable response in the circumstances as he or she perceives them.
(3) This section does not apply if the person uses force that involves the intentional infliction of death or really serious injury:
(a) to protect property; or
(b) to prevent criminal trespass; or
(c) to remove a person who is committing criminal trespass.
(4) This section does not apply if:
(a) the person is responding to lawful conduct; and
(b) he or she knew that the conduct was lawful.
However, conduct is not lawful merely because the person carrying it out is not criminally responsible for it.
Reference
Yeo, S. (2008). Commonwealth and International Perspectives on Self-Defence, Duress and Necessity. Current Issues In Criminal Justice, 19(3), 345-362.