Book Release – Codification, Macaulay and the Indian Penal Code

Codification, Macaulay and the Indian Penal Code: The Legacies and Modern Challenges of Criminal Law Reform – Edited by Wing-Cheong Chan, National University of Singapore, Barry Wright, Professor, Department of Law and Legal Studies Carleton University and Stanley Yeo, National University of Singapore – commemorates the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Indian Penal Code – enacted in 1860 – that is the longest serving and one of the most influential criminal codes in the common law world.

This book – a valuable reference on the Indian Penal Code, and current debates about general principles of criminal law for legal academics, judges, legal practitioners and criminal law reformers – honours the law reform legacy of Thomas Macaulay, the principal drafter of the Code. It also promises to have wider scholarly appeal, of interest to legal theorists, historians and policy specialists.

Barry Wright specializes in legal history, criminal and constitutional law, and legal and political theory. He has published widely on colonial legal history, focusing on Canadian and Australian comparisons, and is editor of a multi-volume collaborative project, Canadian State Trials, that examines political trials and the administration of national security measures in Canadian history (University of Toronto Press-Volume One, 1608-1837 published 1996; Volume Two, 1837-39 published 2002; Volume Three, 1840-1914 published 2009). He is co-author (with Patrick Fitzgerald and Vincent Kazmierski) of Looking at Law: Canada’s Legal System 6th edition (LexisNexis-Butterworths, 2010).