Non-Confrontational Self-Defense and the State of Necessity in Ecuador: Similar Dogmatic Categories? (Review)
Keywords:
Unlawfulness; grounds for justification; self-defense without personal confrontation; state of necessity; right to defenseAbstract
There is a strong and mature doctrinal movement regarding the legal conception of the grounds for exclusion from unlawfulness. However, recent studies allude to the existence of a form of self-defense called self-defense without personal or physical confrontation. This form is not provided for in the Comprehensive Organic Criminal Code of Ecuador, and this leads to the general objective of this study: to legally argue how the lack of legal provision in the Comprehensive Organic Criminal Code of Ecuador does not violate the right to defense in Ecuadorian criminal proceedings, due to the fact that this form of defense is subsumed under the state of necessity, as another ground for justifying criminal conduct, provided for in the same code. This is achieved through a qualitative research approach, employing scientific methods such as analytical-synthetic, exegetical, comparative, and inductive methods. This leads to the conclusion that, in fact, the fact that this form of self-defense is not provided for does not affect the right to defense, since it is described in the grounds for justification recognized in Article 32 of the Comprehensive Organic Criminal Code, which is the state of necessity.
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