Dr Dennis Baker
Contact details
Email: dennis.baker@kcl.ac.uk
Room: L203
Biography
Dennis J. Baker (MPhil, PhD Cambridge) is a Senior Lecturer in Law. Dr Baker joined the Dickson Poon School of Law in 2008, leaving the Chinese University of Hong Kong where he had taught Criminal Law and Procedure and Penal Theory on the postgraduate JD programme. He has also taught undergraduate criminal law at the University of Cambridge.
Research
Predominantly, Dr Baker is an expert in English criminal law. A further core area of interest is philosophy of criminal law. Here, Dr Baker has written on the moral limits of the criminal law with reference to the Harm Principle, Offence Principle and Kant's Categorical Imperatives. Dr Baker has also written papers on developing constitutional rights to curb the growth of substantive criminal law.
Expertise: Jurisprudence, Criminal Law Theory, Equity and Trusts, Human Rights
Publications
Books and monographs
Dennis J. Baker, Glanville Williams: Textbook of Criminal Law, (London: 3rd edition, Sweet & Maxwell, April. 2012).
Dennis J. Baker, The Right Not to be Criminalized: Demarcating Criminal Law's Authority, (London: Ashgate Applied Legal Philosophy Series, 2011 (ISBN 978-1-4094-2765-0).
Dennis J. Baker & Jeremy Horder (eds.), The Legacy of Glanville Williams: The Sanctity of Life and the Criminal Law, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
Journal Articles United States
Dennis J. Baker, “Complicity, Proportionality and the Serious Crime Act” (2011) 14(3) New Criminal Law Review 403.
Dennis J. Baker & Lucy X. Zhao, 'Responsibility Links, Fair Labeling and Proportionality in China: Comparing China's Criminal Law Theory and Doctrine,' (2009) 15(1) UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs 274-334.
Dennis J. Baker, 'The Moral Limits of Consent as a Defense in the Criminal Law,' (2009) 12(1) New Criminal Law Review 93-121.
Dennis J. Baker, “Collective Criminalization and the Constitutional Right to Endanger Others,' (2009) 28(2) Criminal Justice Ethics 168-200.
Dennis J. Baker, “Constitutionalizing the Harm Principle,” (2008) 27(2)Criminal Justice Ethics 3-28.
Dennis J. Baker, 'The Moral Limits of Criminalizing Remote Harms,' (2007) 10(3) New Criminal Law Review 371-391.
Journal Articles Canada
Dennis J. Baker, 'The Impossiblity of a Critically Objective Criminal Law,' (2011) 56(2) McGill L. J. 349.
Journal Articles Australia and Asia
Dennis j. Baker, 'Punishment Without A Crime: Is Preventive Detention Reconcilable with Justice?' (2009) 34 Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy 120-150.
Dennis J. Baker, 'The Sense and Nonsense of Criminalising Transfers of Obscene Material,' (2008) 26 Singapore Law Review 126-155.
Dennis J. Baker, 'Rethinking Consensual Harm Doing,' (2008) 12 UWS Law Review 21-39.
Dennis J. Baker, 'The Harm Principle vs. Kantian Criteria for Ensuring Fair, Principled and Just Criminalisation,' (2008) 33 Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy 66-99.
Journal Articles United Kingdom
Dennis J. Baker, “Liability for Encouraging One’s Own Murder, Victims and Other Exempt Parties,” (2012) 23(3) King’s Law Journal 257–285.
Dennis J. Baker, ‘A Critical Evaluation of the Historical and Contemporary Justifications for Criminalising Begging,’ (2009) 73(3) Journal of Criminal Law 212-240.
Dennis J. Baker, “Omissions Liability for Homicide Offences: Reconciling R. v. Kennedy (No. 2) with R. v. Evans,” (2010) 74(4) Journal of Criminal Law 310-320.
Dennis J. Baker & Lucy X. Zhao, ‘Contributory Qualifying and Non-Qualifying Triggers in the Loss of Control Defence: A Wrong Turn on Sexual Infidelity,’ (2012) 76 Journal of Criminal Law 254-275.
Dennis J. Baker & Lucy X. Zhao, ‘The Criminality of Fines Imposed by Private Car Park Companies,’ (2012) 176 Justice of the Peace Journal 297.
PhD students & topics
Bo Wang: Omissions Liability in English and Chinese Law
Teaching
Undergraduate
Criminal Law, Jurisprudence & Legal Theory, Trusts
Postgraduate
LLM: Philosophy of Criminal Law