Criminal liability for acts related to pornography: international and national standards
D. O. Kukovynets · Issues of crime prevention · 2023
The article is devoted to the study of international and national standards in the field of combating pornographyrelatedactivities. The author classifies international acts in the area under study depending on the nature of their mandatoryprovisions (mandatory and recommendatory standards). Within the framework of mandatory standards, the authoradditionally divides them by the criterion of the direct subject matter of regulation. It is established that currently onlyactivities related to child pornography are recognized as criminalized at the international level.It is noted that national standards in this area cover the issues of restricting not only child pornographic content, butalso the content produced by «adults for adults». It is emphasized that there is currently a gap in Ukrainian legislationin the form of the absence of a definition of «pornography» as a generic concept, which can be eliminated by adoptingDraft Law № 9623, which, among other things, proposes to decriminalize acts related to pornography in the part thatdoes not pose a public danger. The proposed amendments were analyzed for their compliance with the followingdecriminalization criteria: 1) the loss of the sign of public danger by the act; 2) establishment of the inexpediencyof combating a particular type of behavior by means of criminal legal measures; 3) lack of correlation in the assessmentof a particular behavior as socially dangerous between the legislator and the socio-legal psychology of the people.The author concludes that decriminalization of pornography-related activities has the right to be implemented subjectto the following formula, which must include adult defendants, unconditional consent and absence of propaganda of a cultof violence, and simultaneous implementation of regulatory policy measures.