Donato Castronuovo


Donato Castronuovo is Full Professor of Criminal Law at the Department of Law of the Ferrara University. He has been Research Assistant in Modena’s Faculty since 2002, after having obtained in 2001 a Ph.D. in Criminal Law at the Trento University. After having taught for more than 10 years at “Modena e Reggio Emilia” University (2005-2016), he currently teaches “Criminal Law” (1 and 2) and Criminal law of safety at work at Ferrara University. He is member of the Academic Board of the Ph.D. Programme in “European Union Law and national legal systems” at the same University and Deputy Director of MacroCrimes – Centre for European Legal Studies on Macro-Crime.

He has been frequently Visiting Scientist at the “Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Strafrecht, Freiburg im Br.” (since 1999) and also at the Humboldt University in Berlin (2004 and 2005). He has also been Visiting Professor at “Université Paris X” (2017), at “Université de Strasbourg” (2017/2018), at “Université de Franche-Comté” (2018) and “Université de Corse P. Paoli” (December 2019). 

He is member of the scientific committee of the “Ultima Ratio – Filosofie del diritto penale”, Editoriale Scientifica, Napoli and of the law reviews “La legislazione penale” and “Diritto penale – XX secolo”. He is Director (with Antonio Cavaliere, Luigi Kalb, Antonella Marandola, Giorgio Spangher e Luigi Stortoni) of the “Studi di diritto e procedura penale”, Pacini editore, Pisa.

He is author of two monographic studies, one about Criminal Negligence, and another regarding Precautionary Principle in Criminal Law. He is furthermore author of approximately 80 publications, many of them regarding European Criminal Law topics, such as the protection of labour safety, food safety, precautionary principle and more.