CLT Seminar: “Coercion, Consent, and Criminalisation” by Associate Professor Jesse Wall, University of Auckland

In the seminar “Coercion, Consent, and Criminalisation” held on 15 October 2024 by the Centre for Legal Theory (CLT), Assistant Professor Jesse Wall fractured the concept of ‘coercion’ into three parts: coercion as the removal of choice, coercion as the vitiation of permission, and coercion as requiring a person to act contrary to their interests. Using this, Assistant Professor Jesse Wall then assessed whether there are some instances of ‘pressured sex’ that ought to concern the criminal law. Finally, by applying the same critical pressure to the concept of consent, Assistant Professor Jesse Wall identified the same lines of fracture, suggesting that questions of criminalisation turn on whether blameworthy conduct transgresses normative phenomena that the state is responsible for promoting.