Coercive Brain-Reading in Criminal Justice

Sjors Ligthart is assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Law at Tilburg Law School and postdoctoral researcher at the Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology at Utrecht University His research interests include human rights over the mind and the legal implications of brain-reading, neurointerventions, virtual reality, and persuasive technologies in criminal justice. He is co-editor of Neurolaw: Advances in Neuroscience, Justice & Security (2021).

• 1. Setting the stage: Why 'reading' brains raises fundamental legal questions for European human rights law; 2. Brain-reading technologies: Their legally relevant features; 3. Coercive brain-reading and the prohibition of ill-treatment; 4. Coercive brain-reading and the right to respect for private life; 5. Coercive brain-reading and the rights to freedom of thought and to freedom of expression; 6. Coercive brain-reading and the privilege against self-incrimination; 7. Procedural implications of brain-reading in breach of the ECHR: Excluding unlawfully obtained evidence?; 8. Discussion and perspectives: Emerging challenges for European human rights law; 9. Concluding observations; References; Index.

'Should our criminal justice systems adopt new neuroimaging technologies for the purposes of determining responsibility, establishing guilt or assessing risk of recidivism? Ligthart traces the myriad ways in which European human rights law bears on this question. His book provides a compelling, lucid and even-handed analysis, and is essential reading for anyone interested in the ethical and legal status of forensic brain-reading.' Tom Douglas, Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford