In Defence of Self-Defence

Self-defence is an inescapable figure of contemporary legal systems of liability. It appears to be one of the most important traditional mechanisms of private Justice, although unwanted by the state monopoly of legal coercion. This subjects it to a role of justification and to increasing limitations. The present study assesses the merit of these limits in the civil domain, denying it the anachronistic status to which it is (allegedly) relegated. The approach is based on the two main vectors of the figure, namely aggression, on which it depends, and the admissible defence.