THE IMPACT OF GLOBALIZATION IN CRIMINAL LAW: BETWEEN LIBERTY AND SECURITY.

Criminal law, being the face of the identity of a certain State, reflects the most important values of a certain community. Nonetheless, the impact of globalization in criminal law has been evidently progressively more relevant, be it regarding international covenants imposing the safeguard of certain values, be it through regional instruments - as by the European Union - imposing the criminalization of certain behaviors. In other words, the community relevant in terms of criminal law has known an exponential growth. However, criminal law has its own grammar, in the sense that some ideas are co-natural to the comprehension of this legal area and its meaning in terms of the balance of the fundamental values it stands on: liberty and security. Having under regard the ultima ratio maxim of criminal law, the paper intends to analyze the pendular movement between liberty and security, considering three main vectors: the principle of legality, gender violence and terrorism. The principle of legality represents the general minimal standard of guarantee of criminal law in wider terms, considering the several international covenants regarding the intervention of the ius puniendi of the States. Gender violence, in particular as a situated cultural phenomenon, has been increasingly more relevant in terms of international protection, being in this case particularly relevant the Istanbul Convention. Finally, terrorism has been a major issue of debate with an exponential growth in terms of instruments requiring the harmonization of criminal law intervention since 9/11. These vectors of analysis, interpreted as having different incidence in the pendulum between liberty and security, can possibly allow to ascertain the main direction of the pendulum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]