Call for Titles and Abstracts: 100 Years of the Infanticide Act: Legacy and Impact; Submit Abstract by May 31, 2021

1922 marks 100 years since the Infanticide Act was passed in England and Wales. To mark the centenary of the Infanticide Act 1922, we are developing an edited collection on the offence/defence of infanticide: 100 Years of the Infanticide Act: Legacy and Impact.

The collection will focus on the impact, legacy, and future of the infanticide law, starting with its enactment in 1922 and focusing on the current law as found in the Infanticide Act 1938. We are interested in receiving contributions which consider the infanticide law in England and Wales and in other jurisdictions from doctrinal, theoretical, socio-legal, medico-legal, and legal history perspectives.

Our intention is to bring together a range of scholars who have made important contributions to our understanding of this law. This includes scholarship from across the globe that engages with the criminal law and criminal justice responses to infanticide in other jurisdictions, whether they have enacting specific legislation on this issue or taken a different approach.

In particular, we are interested in contributions which consider (but are not limited to) the following issues:

• How the infanticide law has been interpreted and used as part of the criminal justice response to women who kill their babies
• Theoretical and doctrinal analyses of the offence/defence of infanticide
• How the infanticide doctrine fits in with and relates to the broader framework of capacity-related criminal defences
• Evidential issues arising from the use of the infanticide law
• The future outlook for this law, particularly with regard to considerations for abolishing or reforming it
• Medico-legal critiques of the medical rationale of the law
• Feminist critiques of the law
• Infanticide laws (or lack thereof) in other jurisdictions

Abstract Submission

We have interest from and are working with Hart Publishing to develop a book proposal. The editors warmly welcome submissions from academics and researchers, as well as legal professionals. Please submit a 200-word abstract of your proposed chapter to emma.milne@durham.ac.uk on or before May 31^st 2021. We will be asking authors to work to the following deadlines:

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