Colonizing criminal law: towards new architecture of criminal code
Authors: Tuliakov Viacheslav Oleksiiovych , Savinova Nataliia Andriivna 
Published: December 2024

The transition from colonial criminal law to a new legal architecture is vital for societies in transition, requiring careful reform and inclusive dialogue. This study explores the urgent need to deconstruct and reform criminal law frameworks in a globally interconnected world, where national legal systems struggle to address cross-border crimes like cybercrime, terrorism, and human trafficking. Traditional national frameworks, driven by state sovereignty, often conflict with international mandates, leading to discrepancies in how crimes are prosecuted across jurisdictions. This selective enforcement fosters public disillusionment with the rule of law and reveals the limitations of national sovereignty in regulating transnational offenses. As globalization accelerates, the world faces increasing social and cultural fragmentation, exemplified by war conflicts, which expose the limitations of traditional legal frameworks in addressing contemporary criminal challenges. These evolving dynamics necessitate an urgent re-evaluation of the mechanisms governing criminal liability, as national criminal law systems often prove inadequate in a globalized world where cross-border criminal activities and transnational offenses are on the rise. National criminal law, historically driven by state sovereignty and often perfectionist in its approach to national interests, increasingly collides with international mandates and global legal norms. This collision results in selective enforcement of justice, leading to discrepancies between how crimes are defined and prosecuted across different jurisdictions. To address these challenges, the study proposes the "architectonics of criminal regulation," a multi-layered framework that integrates national, regional, and international legal systems. This approach seeks to create a universal platform for criminal law that upholds human rights, promotes justice, and ensures consistent legal application across borders. The protection of human rights, especially in conflict zones, is central to this restructuring, with a focus on preventing abuses of power and ensuring accountability where local authorities have failed. In the context of transnational criminal law, the study emphasizes the importance of integrating international legal norms, such as those enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), into the architectonics of criminal regulation. The ECHR provides a foundational legal framework that protects individual rights across member states, ensuring that any reforms to criminal law prioritize the protection of human dignity and justice. The architectonics approach builds on these principles by advocating for a unified legal platform that harmonizes national and international laws, allowing for effective prosecution of cross-border crimes while safeguarding human rights. This ensures that states adhere to a consistent standard of justice, even in the face of evolving global criminal challenges. By incorporating the ECHR’s protections into transnational criminal law, the architectonics framework strengthens the legal mechanisms required to combat international crimes while upholding fundamental human rights. The proposed architectonics of criminal regulation serves as a foundational platform for bridging the gaps between national legal systems and global criminal justice, ensuring that criminal law is capable of addressing the challenges of an interconnected, complex, and increasingly fragmented world.