The typical trial-oriented systems of criminal justice that are primarily based on the strict application of substantive criminal law have reached their functional and logistical limits in most parts of the modern legal world. As a result, less formal, administrative, and discretionary case disposals, plea bargaining arrangements, and other alternative procedural and transitional justice mechanisms have emerged at unprecedented levels in national and international legal orders affiliated both with the civil law and the common law tradition. These normative constructs and practices aim at abbreviating, simplifying, or circumventing the criminal investigation and prosecution as well as at enhancing the effectiveness of conflict resolution proceedings. The purpose of the present international conference, co-organized by the School of Law at Queen Mary University of London, the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law (Freiburg, Germany), and the European & International Criminal Law Institute (Athens, Greece), is the comparative, model-based, and evaluative (legitimacy-oriented) analysis of such alternative and informal types of criminal justice and of new sanction models in the modern risk society. All the speakers and discussants who will be debating the results of their research are internationally acclaimed scholars and/or legal policy actors in this field.