Professor Dirk Van Zyl Smit, Dr Catherine Appleton, and Georgie Benford will host a workshop on Human Rights and Life Imprisonment at the Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law in Spain.
The workshop will form part of the Life Imprisonment Worldwide: Principles and Practice research project which is funded by the Leverhulme Trust.
The progressive abolition of the death penalty in many countries over the last 50 years has been heralded as one of liberal humanism’s greatest successes. In the push to eradicate the death penalty, however, many penal reformers have chosen to accept and endorse the widespread use of life imprisonment as the other ultimate penalty without close scrutiny of its practical operation or its alignment with international human rights standards and the purposes and principles of sentencing. This workshop aims to bring together a number of leading international scholars to evaluate the imposition and implementation of life imprisonment around the world against evolving standards of decency and human rights.
The main objective of the workshop is to examine the imposition and implementation of life imprisonment on a global scale from legal, sociological and human rights perspectives. Attention will be paid to new information on what is happening in practice around the world. Attention will also be given to jurisdictions where there is no life imprisonment, so that the desirability of life imprisonment per se can be considered.
Read the full theme statement (PDF).
The full programme is being finalised and will be released soon.
Posted on Tuesday 8th April 2014