Depending on whether a risk-generating conduct is attributed to the victim or the offender, assumption of risk can be classified into two categories: (1)"self-endangering", i.e., the victim dominates the occurrence of the harmful result, while the offender only participates in the risk-generating conduct; (2)"endangering someone else", i.e., the offender dominates the concurrence of the harmful result. None of such theories as Consent, the Protective Scope of the Rule, the Self-liability Principle, the Dogmatics of the Victim or the Negation of Risk provides appropriate theoretical basis for acceptance of risk.The self-liability principle, as the currently dominant theory, sets various conditions to reach the"not guilty" conclusion, but such conditions are untenable. Moreover, the self-liability theory and the consent theory share the same jurisprudential basis, i.e., the Right of Self-determination of the victim. Now that in cases of"endangering someone else" the wrongfulness of the act cannot be negated by the operation of consent, the self-liability principle with the same jurisprudential basis is also unable to accomplish that goal. In cases of self-endangering, since the victim’s conduct which dominates the concurrence of the harmful result does not fulfill any criminal constitutive requirements, the participator (the offender) should be exculpated on the basis of the Doctrine of Accomplice Dependency.In a situation where the conduct of the offender and the victim jointly lead to the harmful result, it should be classified as self-endangering, and the criminality of the offender’s conduct should be negated. In cases of endangering someone else, the conduct of the offender fulfills the constitutive requirements of negligence without any justified defense, and thus in principle the offender cannot be exculpated. However, if it can be proved that the victim has coerced the offender or has superior knowledge, which enables him to dominate the causal process and renders him the indirect principal for the occurrence of the harmful result, then the offender should be exculpated. |