Abstract

The criminal law of contemporary constitutional states legitimates itself in essentially democratic-republican terms, as being primarily aimed at citizens. In this perspective, there is no special place for the foreigner as a criminal subject, but he/she is ssentially taken into account as a double of the citizen, assimilated to him/her. During approximately the last 30 years, however, criminal law has taken on new trajectories (crimmigration, enemy criminal law), which refer paradigmatically (not to the citizen, but) to the foreigner and subject him/her to worse legal treatment than that which is considered legitimate when citizens are concerned. This paper explores these alternative legitimating models, with a view to critically analyze their underlying logic