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Paul Robinson

Paul H. Robinson

Colin S. Diver Professor of Law

Paul Robinson is one of the world’s leading criminal law scholars. A prolific writer and lecturer, Robinson has published articles in virtually all of the top law reviews, lectured in more than 100 cities in 34 states and 27 countries, and had his writings appear in 15 languages.

He is a former federal prosecutor and counsel for the US Senate Subcommittee on Criminal Laws and Procedures. He is the author or editor of 19 books, including the standard lawyer’s reference on criminal law defenses, three Oxford monographs on criminal law theory, a highly regarded criminal law treatise, and an innovative case studies course book.

A member of the American Law Institute, Robinson is the lead editor of Criminal Law Conversations (Oxford), with contributions from more than 100 scholars around the world, and the author of Intuitions of Justice and the Utility of Desert (Oxford); Mapping American Criminal Law (Praeger, also in Chinese); Distributive Principles of Criminal Law (Oxford, also in Spanish and Chinese); and Structure and Function in Criminal Law (Oxford, Clarendon, also in Chinese). Robinson recently completed three criminal code reform projects in the U.S. and two modern Islamic penal codes, including one under the auspices of the U.N. Development Programme. He also writes popular books for general audiences, such as Would You Convict? (NYU), Law Without Justice (Oxford), Crimes That Changed Our World (Rowman & Littlefield), Shadow Vigilantes (Prometheus), and American Criminal Law (Routledge).