The Role of Criminal Law in the Protection of the Fashion Industry: Legal Interests, the International Scenario and the Italian Experience

This paper aims at providing the reader with a state of the art overview of the debate on the role of criminal law in the protection of the fashion industry. The objective of the first part of the research is to identify the legal interests at stake and the theoretical issues that need to be addressed in order to understand whether criminal law should (at least always) be used to protect one or more of these interests and, if so, how and within what limits. The second part outlines the international and European regulatory scenario and the criminal law provisions that characterize the Italian legal system as a significant case study, before making some concluding remarks on the future scenarios of the subject.