consent to killing

Consent to killing describes the situation where a person expressly accepts or actively wishes to be killed by another, but where that consent is given no legal effect as a ground for impunity under Danish criminal law. Unlike many other areas of law, where informed consent can change the legal assessment of an act, this principle does not apply to homicide. A person who kills cannot invoke the victim's wish as an excuse or as grounds for escaping punishment.

Danish criminal law regulates the phenomenon specifically in the Danish Penal Code (straffeloven) § 239, which deals with killing on request. The provision states that a person who kills another at that person's definite request is punished with imprisonment for up to 3 years — a markedly lower sentencing range than for homicide under § 237. The criminalisation itself is nevertheless maintained: the consent therefore results only in a possible reduction of punishment, not in impunity.

The concept is central to understanding the case of Armin Meiwes, the German man who in 2001 killed and ate a man who had allegedly voluntarily agreed to be killed and eaten. Meiwes argued that the victim's express consent — communicated via the internet and confirmed in person — changed the character of the act. The case illustrates precisely why Danish and German law do not accept consent as a ground for impunity in homicide: the state has an independent interest in protecting human life, regardless of the wishes of the person killed.

The legal logic behind this principle is that the right to life is not merely a private right that the individual can freely dispose of in relation to a third party with legal effect. Although the principle of autonomy carries great weight in modern law, the inviolability of human life sets a limit that cannot be crossed by consent. The perpetrator therefore acts criminally, regardless of whether the motive was the victim's express wish.