The reason I think it will stop most is your progression will be slower. There is a boost to your attributes at different ages, You get a boost to physical attributes while you are younger and boost to mental attributes as you get older. Mental attributes actually help you focus and research faster. That's another time in your life where you want to grind out skill. Over time, gankers would be easier to deal with because they didn't round out their characters.
Another big thing is, this is a community game. In world of warcraft, if I see someone get ganked while gathering, I just kind of laugh and say "Sucks for them." In CoE, if you are out ganking gathers in my county, you are slowing my production down and messing with my money at that point. It's selfish but people will care about others that cannot fight. We need people like that.
When you commit a crime and get caught, it also affects your family rep. Your family will have a harder time with npcs, prices will go up, some may refuse to flat out sell to them. It's going to be annoying to have a ganker in your family. Unless you want bad rep. I don't think non-pvpers would want anything to do with gankers. At least anything that can be traced back to them.
There is gameplay for catching criminals! I have always been a pvper. Games normally, reward you for killing and stealing, barely any games reward you for protecting people. CoE does. Myself for example, I'm going to be an investigator and I want to hear when someone gets attacked. My fun in this game will be tracking down and fighting criminals. That may seem like it would just be fun for them too but being a ganker with no backing, no organization, everyone knows who you are, and everyone attacks you on sight, that gets old fast.
Who I think it won't stop are whales that don't care about dying because it's just pocket change to them. That's not going to be everyone though.