
Markus Dubber
78 Queen's Park
Education
Stanford University, J.D., 1991
Harvard University, A.B. (Philosophy), 1988
Overview
Markus D. Dubber is Professor, Faculty of Law & Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies. Much of Markus's scholarship has focused on theoretical, comparative, and historical aspects of criminal law. He has published, as author or editor, over twenty books and eighty papers; his work has appeared in English and German, and has been translated into Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Italian, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, and Spanish, and cited across various disciplines in several other languages, including Bosnian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Flemish, French, Georgian, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, and Ukrainian (ssrn | Google Scholar). His books include, among others, El Estado Penal Dual (2024); Der doppelte Strafstaat (2022); The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of AI (with Frank Pasquale & Sunit Das) (2020); The Dual Penal State: The Crisis of Criminal Law in Comparative-Historical Perspective (2018); The Oxford Handbook of Legal History (with Christopher Tomlins) (2018); The Oxford Handbook of European Legal History (with Heikki Pihlajamäki & Mark Godfrey) (2018); Criminal Law: A Comparative Approach (with Tatjana Hörnle) (2014); The Oxford Handbook of Criminal Law (with Tatjana Hörnle) (2014); Foundational Texts in Modern Criminal Law (2014); The Sense of Justice: Empathy in Law and Punishment (2006) (available open access through Open Square @ NYU Press); The New Police Science: The Police Power in Domestic and International Governance (with Mariana Valverde) (2006); The Police Power: Patriarchy and the Foundations of American Government (2005); and Victims in the War on Crime (2002) (available open access through Open Square @ NYU Press). Journals in which his work has appeared include, among others, Stanford Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Law & History Review, American Journal of Comparative Law, Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft, Kritische Vierteljahresschrift für Gesetzgebung und Rechtswissenschaft, Leiden Journal of International Law, and Journal of International Criminal Justice. Markus is a member of the Drafting Committee for The 8 March Principles for a Human Rights-Based Approach to Criminal Law, published in 2023 by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in collaboration with OHCHR, UNAIDS, WHO, and UNDP. He was elected to the American Law Institute in 2002 and received the Konrad Adenauer Research Prize of the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation and the Royal Society of Canada in 2014.
From 2016-2022, Markus served as director of the University of Toronto's interdisciplinary Centre for Ethics, where he launched the Ethics of AI Lab, the Race, Ethics + Power Project, and the multimedia C4eJournal. Previously, Markus established and led the Buffalo Criminal Law Center at SUNY Buffalo, including the Criminal Law LL.M. Program, the Herbert Wechsler National Criminal Moot Court Competition, and the Buffalo Criminal Law Review (now New Criminal Law Review). He is also founding editor-in-chief of Ethics in Context (Oxford), Oxford Handbooks Online (Law), Critical Perspectives on Law and Crime (Stanford), and the online open-access journal Critical Analysis of Law (with Simon Stern).
In 2023, he launched Modern Criminal Law Review, a global multimedia criminal law platform with editorial team members from over fifteen countries.
Other career highlights include appearing on Penelope von Schnitzel's show What in the World Do You Do?, getting name-checked by Jill Lepore in the New Yorker, and hosting an academic event that featured a choir, a Poet Laureate, a printmaker, and items from the University of Toronto's Leonard Cohen collection.
➤ International visitors: Over the years, I've served as academic host for junior and senior researchers in my areas of interest from various countries (including Australia, Austria, China, Finland, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Poland, Singapore, Switzerland, UK, and US), who are provided with access to university resources during their research visit (library access and, if available, work space); financial support is not available. Send inquiries to markus.dubber@utoronto.ca.
Areas of Interest
- Comparative Law
- Criminal Justice
- Legal History
- Legal Theory
Teaching
Winter Session
Full Year Session
Projects & Resources
Criminal Law
- Criminal Law Web [Research & Teaching]
- Foundational Texts in Modern Criminal Law [Companion Website]
- The Dual Penal State (PiPP) [https://uoft.me/dualpenalstate]
- Modern Criminal Law Review [incl. Resources]
Criminal Law & Human Rights
Ethics of AI in Context
CAL
- CAL Lab: Critical Analysis of Law @ UofT
- CAL: An International & Interdisciplinary Law Review
- CAL for Students: A Tool Kit & Read-in Group
UofT
Selected Publications
- “New Legal Science in the Dual Penal State: Critical Analysis of Law and the Legitimacy of State Power,” 14 Bergen J. Crim. L. & Crim. Just. 1 (2025) (Special Issue).
- "Per una Nuova Scienza Giuridica nello Stato penale duale: Analisi critica del diritto e della legittimità del potere statale,” 2025 Rivista italiana di diritto e procedura penale 507 (2025) (Filippo Venturi trans.)
- commentary by Stefano Manacorda, “La comparazione penalistica e la proposta per una New Legal Science tra ambizione teorica e prospettive metodologiche,” id. at 493.
- "Neue Rechtswissenschaft im doppelten Strafstaat: Kritische Analyse des Rechts und die Legitimität der Staatsmacht,” 137 Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft 607 (2025) (Morten Boe trans.)
- commentary by Thomas Weigend, "Aufgaben einer Neuen Strafrechtswissenschaft: Gedanken zu Markus D. Dubber, 'Neue Rechtswissenschaft im doppelten Strafstaat,'" id. at 630
- "Per una Nuova Scienza Giuridica nello Stato penale duale: Analisi critica del diritto e della legittimità del potere statale,” 2025 Rivista italiana di diritto e procedura penale 507 (2025) (Filippo Venturi trans.)
- El Estado Penal Dual (Madrid: Marcial Pons 2024).
- Der doppelte Strafstaat (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 2022).
- The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of AI (w/ Frank Pasquale & Sunit Das) (Oxford University Press 2020). Paperback edition 2021.
- Chinese translation 2024 (Chinese Renmin University Press, Beijing).
- Greek translation in preparation (Papazissis Publishers, Athens).
- The Dual Penal State: The Crisis of Criminal Law in Comparative-Historical Perspective (Oxford University Press 2018). Paperback edition 2021.
- Portuguese translation in preparation (CDS Editora (Porto Alegre)).
- The Oxford Handbook of Legal History ((w/ Christopher Tomlins) (Oxford University Press 2018).
- Chinese translation in preparation (Shanghai Joint Publishing Co. (Beijing)).
- The Oxford Handbook of European Legal History (w/ Heikki Pihlajamäki & Mark Godfrey) (Oxford University Press 2018).
- Chinese translation in preparation (Shanghai People’s Publishing House).
- "New Historical Jurisprudence: Legal History as Critical Analysis of Law," 2 CAL 1 (2015).
- An Introduction to the Model Penal Code (Oxford University Press, 2015).
- Chinese translation 2024 (China University of Political Science and Law Press (Beijing)).
- Oxford Handbook of Criminal Law (with Tatjana Hörnle) (Oxford University Press, 2014).
- Chinese translation 2023 (Shanghai SDK Joint Publishing Company 2023) (Lifeng Li, Jilin University).
- Foundational Texts in Modern Criminal Law (Oxford University Press, 2014) (companion website)
- Criminal Law: A Comparative Approach (with Tatjana Hörnle) (Oxford University Press, 2014) (mens rea)
- Chinese translation in preparation (China Legal Publishing House).
- Special Issue, Critical Analysis of Law and the New Interdisciplinarity, 1:1 CAL (2014) (w/ Simon Stern).