The first section of this article describes criminal law's parochialism. The second section discusses the histories and functions of comparative criminal law. The third section discusses selected topics in comparative law, such as punishment theory, victims, jurisdiction, the principle of legality, an analysis of criminal liability, and general principles of criminal liability. The last section discusses comparative criminal law in context. The discussion notes that comparative criminal law is best seen as one way to gain critical distance from a given system of criminal law by placing it within a larger context.