ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to set out the constitutional limits of the substantive criminal law. In the period since publication of J. S. Mills Harm Principle, constitutional courts in North America and Europe have taken critical steps toward the decriminalization of sexual activities, abortion, begging, and marijuana use and so on. Inter-subjectively, members of even the most advanced societies are not so rational that they can identify objective truths or universal standards. The evaluative interpretation method used to determine rights in Europe allows the courts there to acknowledge that concepts can change over time and requires the courts to consider the E. C. H. R. in light of social and economic evolutions. The chapter examines the objectivity of harm claims, because it can only be used by courts to constrain unjust criminalization if a reasonably robust account of the criminalized conducts harmfulness is provided. The conventional contingency of many bad consequences means that achieving proportionality is a complex matter indeed.
