Terminology 1.  This report examines practices falling within the following definition: “a process not prohibited by law under which criminal defendants agree to accept guilt and/or cooperate with the investigative authority in exchange for some benefit from the state, most commonly in the form of reduced charges and/or lower sentences.” In this report, we have referred to practices falling within this definition as “trial waivers” and the mechanisms that permit them as “trial waiver systems”. 2. There are many different names for the very varied practices falling within this definition including “plea bargaining”, “guilty pleas”, “summary procedures” and “abbreviated trials”, among others. What these systems have in common, however, is the agreement by the defendant to waive full trial rights in exchange for a concession by the state. Hence our decision to use “trial waiver systems” as the global term, while using the terminology applied in the domestic context when referring to specific jurisdictions. Nonetheless, we recognise that even the term “trial waiver systems” is imperfect, given that some such mechanisms may formally take place within the context of what is understood locally to be a trial, if abbreviated or simplified. 3. This report does not examine related practices that fall outside the given definition, including penal orders, diversion programmes, restorative justice programmes, and some varieties of drug courts and cooperation systems that do not require admissions of guilt or divert people away from prosecution altogether. For example, in certain jurisdictions charges may be dropped upon payment of a fine, fulfilment of certain conditions, or conclusion of a settlement between the offender and the victim. As these forms of alternatives to trial do not result in a criminal conviction, they are not included in this study. Nonetheless, they are likely to pose some of the same challenges and opportunities that have been identified in relation to trial waiver systems. Furthermore, the report only addresses trial waiver systems as they apply to individuals, not, for example, any such systems that might be in place for corporate entities (nonprosecution agreements, etc.). 2. 4. Other forms of trial waiver systems that did not meet the threshold of the given definition include sentencing regimes that permit judges to mitigate punishment on a discretionary basis in recognition of a guilty plea, confession, or expression of remorse. This type of mitigation is available in the vast majority of jurisdictions surveyed. Where the potential mitigation for plea or cooperation takes a very discretionary form, such that it is not a reliable outcome on which defendants could make rational decisions to plead or cooperate, it did not fall within the definition of a trial waiver system. This was the case, for example, in Thailand, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Mongolia and Namibia, none of which are characterised as trial waiver systems for the purposes of this research. 5. These simple mitigation regimes can be distinguished from those forms of trial waivers involving reliable, consistent, systematic and predictable reductions of sentence offered in exchange for a waiver of trial or cooperation. In other systems, including Australia, Canada, England and Wales, and New Zealand, sentence incentives are technically applied on a discretionary basis by the judicial authority, but in practice have become virtually guaranteed and can be anticipated with a degree of accuracy. These systems have therefore been characterised as trial waiver systems featuring sentence incentives.