Legal good

It has since been adopted, along with other aspects of German criminal theory, in many legal systems of Europe, Latin America, and East Asia.

[6] The concept of legal goods is not generally used in the common law tradition, where the harm principle plays a broadly analogous role.

[8] In contast to Birnbaum, Binding regarded legal goods to be relevant only on a policy level, as guiding the work of the legislator.

[9] Under Binding's interpretation, the concept of a legal good became a rationalization for expanding the state's criminal power rather than a basis for limiting it as Birnbaum had envisioned.

[11] Under Liszt's material conception of legal goods, they arise from the interest of a community in maintaining the conditions of life already in existence.

[15] In more recent times, legal goods theory has been criticized for its lack of a clear theoretical basis or constitutional foundation.

Thus, for example, German courts have upheld prohibitions on illegal drugs under the theory that these are based on a collective legal good of "public health".

For example, under Article 21 of the South Korean criminal code, the privilege of legitimate defense is available to the extent one is acting to defend against an infringement of a "legal good of oneself or another.

[31] The common law tradition has not adopted the concept of legal goods, but the harm principle, which goes back to the British philosopher John Stuart Mill, fills a similar function.

[32] Among the differences between these two approaches is that the harm principle constrains the use of criminal law to support the collective interests of society to a greater extent than legal goods theory does.