[pre-print version of Ferreira, Nuno (2008) Putting the age of criminal and tort liability into context: a dialogue between law and psychology. The International Journal of Children's Rights, 16 (1). pp. 29-54. ISSN 0927-5568] 1 Putting the Age of Criminal and Tort Liability into Context: A Dialogue between Law and Psychology Nuno Ferreira School of Law, The University of Manchester Abstract The concepts of ‘liability age’ and ‘capacity responsibility’ have been widely dissected by researchers in various fields. However, their application to both criminal and tort liability of children remains inconsistent. Furthermore, rarely has an interdisciplinary approach adequately dealt with these concepts and their impact on legal norms. This text investigates the notion of criminal and tort liability age in connection with the notion of capacity responsibility, in relation to children, and further questions the adequacy of the relevant legal norms. This endeavour to improve the applicable legal norms is supported by an analysis of the pertinent findings in the field of psychology, particularly in respect of the moral development of children. Informed by an excursion through the ideas of Piaget, Kohlberg, and Gilligan, among others, regarding the moral development of children, the text also serves to assess the impact of concepts of moral responsibility and maturity, in relation to the development of the legal norms, which determine the age of liability of children. The text concludes with a proposal for a criminal and tort liability age framework, based upon indicative/presumptive age milestones, and an integrated approach to all relevant circumstances in casu. Keywords Criminal liability; Tort liability; Liability age; Legal responsibility; Moral responsibility; Moral development; Piaget; Kohlberg; Gilligan; Maturity 1. Introduction Article 3 (1) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) names the best interests of the child as (at least) one of the main criteria to be employed whenever adopting measures regarding a child. The fact that this criterion should be employed by several entities within the countries that ratified the UNCRC, including the courts of law, is of great importance: courts of law should not be blind to the special conditions of the person sitting behind the bench, namely, their age. A child is a kind of defendant whose age, in relation to his/her physical and psychological development and emotional and educational needs, demands particular consideration. Furthermore, Article 40 of the Convention states that when a child is accused of having infringed penal law, the following priorities need to be observed, taking into account the child’s age (which, I argue, are equally valid, with the necessary adaptations, for the infringement of private law):