El estado de necesidad del artículo 10 no 11 del Código penal chileno: ¿Una norma bifronte? Elementos para una respuesta negativa

Law no. 29480 of December 2010 has introduced into Article 10 no. 11 of the Chilean Penal Code a new form of necessity defense. In the context of the national scientific debate concerning the merits and demerits of the Reform, this amendment has revived the discussion on the legal nature of necessity: that is, if such defense is an excuse or if instead it has a dual structure, thus being both a justification and an excuse, depending on the relevant case. Five years after this provision has entered into force, this essay portrays the debate the rose among Chilean Scholarship on the Reform. It then provides the author's interpretation and/or posture on both theories, and also points out the difficulties related to the interpretation of necessity as an excuse, which the author considers to be the only convincing conclusion. In the end, it describes and critically analyses the opinion recently put forth by a national scholar on this issue.