Coca Vila, Ivó2023-04-202023-04-202024Coca‑Vila I. On the necessity defense in a democratic welfare state: leaving Pandora’s box ajar. Crim Law Philos. 2024;18:61-88. DOI: 10.1007/s11572-023-09667-71871-9791http://hdl.handle.net/10230/56517The necessity defense is barely accepted in contemporary Western case law. The courts, relying on the opinion held by the majority of legal scholars, have reduced its margin of application to practically zero, since in the framework of contemporary welfare states, there is almost always a “legal alternative.” The needy person who acts on their own behalf, regardless of whether they save an interest higher than the one they injure, does not show due deference to democratic legal solutions and procedural channels. This article aims to contest this abrogative interpretation of the necessity defense and to outline the limits of its legitimate scope. Even in welfare states, there are actions in a necessity scenario that neither question the legal decisions of the democratically elected legislature nor make a mockery of established procedural channels.application/pdfeng© The Author(s) 2023. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licen ses/by/4.0/.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11572-023-09667-7Criminal LawNecessity defenseSubsidiarity requirementWelfare stateCivil obedienceinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess