Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-75dct Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-07T23:40:30.127Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

INTERNATIONAL IMPRISONMENT

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2008

Abstract

Every State in the modern world has a prison system, established and purportedly administered in terms of formal legal rules. Most such systems house both sentenced and unsentenced prisoners and have minimum standards and rules that are common to all prisoners. Although there is now a considerable body of international law that aims to provide a human rights framework for the recognition of the rights of all prisoners, the universality of the prison and the ubiquity of international human rights law have not meant that there is international consensus about what imprisonment should be used for and how prisons should be administered. The prison as a penal institution has remained firmly rooted in the nation State and in national legal systems. In this respect penal institutions are different from other detention facilities, most particularly those for prisoners of war, which have long been governed by the rules of international humanitarian law.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © British Institute of International and Comparative Law 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 In addition, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, which is a mixture of an international and a national tribunal, has its own detention unit attached to the Court: See <www.sc-sl.org>..>Google Scholar

2 On 16 July 2004 there were 65 prisoners in the detention unit at The Hague of whom six had been sentenced and were awaiting transfer. A further 13 were serving sentences imposed by the ICTY in various European countries: see <www.un.org/icty/glance/index.htm>..>Google ScholarAccording to the undated fact sheet of the ICTR (accessed on 14 July 2004 at <www.ictr.org/default.html>). Fifty-five detainees are held at its detention unit. The fact sheet does not reveal how many of these are sentenced or how many have been transferred to the States that volunteered to take sentenced prisoners.).+Fifty-five+detainees+are+held+at+its+detention+unit.+The+fact+sheet+does+not+reveal+how+many+of+these+are+sentenced+or+how+many+have+been+transferred+to+the+States+that+volunteered+to+take+sentenced+prisoners.>Google ScholarThe detention unit of the Special Court for Sierra Leone housed eight prisoners awaiting trial on 15 June 2004: See ‘The Problem with the Special Court for Sierra Leone’ The Independent (Freetown) 15 June 2004. Accessed at <allafrica.com/stories/200406150493.html> on 17 June 2004.+on+17+June+2004.>Google Scholar

3 See the Charter of the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg) 8 Aug 1945 UNTS 82, 279, and the Charter of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo) 19 Jan 1946 TIAS 1589.Google Scholar

4 In spite of their protests that convicted soldiers ‘deserved’ to be shot, those sentenced to death were all hanged like ‘common criminals’: T, TaylorThe Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials (Bloomsbury London 1993) 603–7.Google Scholar

5 Ibid.

6 Art 29 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal.Google Scholar

7 S, DouglasCombat and Command: The Story of an Airman in Two World Wars (Simon & Schuster New York 1963) 736–55.Google Scholar

8 See the postscript by Lord Hankey to Viscount Maugham UNO and War Crimes (John Murray London 1951) 124.Google Scholar

9 A Speer Spandau The Secret Diaries (Collins London 1976) 116–33.Google Scholar

10 ESC Res 663 C (XXIV), 31 July 1957, 24 UN ESSCOR Supp (No 1) 11, UN Doc E/3048 (1957) and 2076 (LXH) (1957).Google Scholar

11 C, Kress and G, Sluiter ‘Imprisonment’ in Cassese, Gaeta and Jones, (eds) The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Couri vol 2 (OUP Oxford 2002) 1761.Google Scholar

12 Hess v United Kingdom DR 2, 72 (Decision of 28 May 1975).Google Scholar

13 A, KlipEnforcement of Sanctions Imposed by the International Tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia’ (1997) 5 European Journal of Crime Criminal Law and Criminology 161.Google Scholar

14 Kress, and Sluiter, above n 11 at 1761.Google Scholar

15 See the unsuccessful habeas corpus application to the US Supreme Court in Hirota v MacArthur 338 US 197.Google Scholar

16 Published in BVA, Röling and CF, Rülter (eds) The Tokyo Judgment: The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) 29 April 1946–12 November 1948 vol 2 (Amsterdam University Press Amsterdam 1977) 1041.Google Scholar

17 Kress, and Sluiter, above n 11 at 17631764.Google Scholar

18 A very rosy account of the conditions of detention of the Japanese prisoners is to be found in JL, GinnSugamo Prison, Tokyo an Account of the Trial and Sentencing of Japanese War Criminals in 1948, by a U.S. Participant (McFarland Jefferson NC 1992).Google Scholar

19 RJ, PritchardThe Gift of Clemency following British War Crime Trials in the Far East, 1946–1948’ (1996) 7 Criminal Law Forum 1550Google Scholar

20 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide adopted 9 Dec 1948 78 UNTS 277.Google Scholar

21 UNGAOR 5th Session Supp 12, UN Doc A/1316 (1950).Google Scholar

22 W, SchabasWar Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and the Death Penalty’ (1997) 60 Albany Law Review 733 at 742–3.Google Scholar

23 As human rights law impacts on all aspects of imprisonment, this paper deliberately deals with them together.Google Scholar

24 Art 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, GA Res 217A ( III ), 10 Dec 1948,3 UN GAOR Supp (No. 11A) 71, UN Doc A/810, 7 (1948).Google Scholar

25 MC, BassiouniHuman Rights in the Context of Criminal Justice: Identifying International Procedural Protections and the Equivalent Protection in National Constitutions’ (1993) 3 Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law 263.Google Scholar

26 1 Wm, and Mary, 2d Sess (1689).Google Scholar

27 For the wider context of this movement in the USA, see JB, JacobsNew Perspectives on Prison and Imprisonment (Cornell University Press Ithaca 1983) ch 1, ‘Macrosociology and Imprisonment’.Google Scholar

28 Weems v United States 217 US 349 (1909) at 371. The implications of proportionality in this context are explored more fully in D, van Zyl Smit and A, AshworthDisproportionate Sentences as Human Rights Violations’ (2004) 67 Modern Law Review 541–60.Google Scholar

29 W, SchabasThe Death Penalty as Cruel Treatment and Torture (North Eastern University Press Boston MA 1996).Google Scholar

30 W, SchabasThe Abolition of the Death Penalty in International Law (3rd ed) (CUP Cambridge 2002);Google ScholarF, ZimringThe Contradictions of American Capital Punishment (OUP Oxford 2003).Google Scholar

31 Mbenge v Zaire, Communication No. 16/1977 (25 Mar 1983), UN Doc CCPR/C/OP/2 at 76 (1990) where a trial conducted in absentia was considered to be a ground for setting aside the death penalty.Google Scholar

32 The partial exception for prison labour in Art 8.3 ICCPR does not allow labour of ‘an afflictive nature’: see Rule 71(1) of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. For the status of these rules see the text at n 37 below.Google Scholar

33 Art 10(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.Google Scholar

34 Art 10(3). For an analysis of these articles that makes some of these links, see C, SafferlingTowards an International Criminal Procedure (OUP Oxford 2001) 341–6.Google Scholar

35 See n 10 above.Google Scholar

36 See the 1988 Basic Principles for the Treatment of All Persons under Any Form of Detention GA Res 173 (XXXXm), 9 Dec 1988) and the Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners GA Res 111 (XXXXV), 14 Dec 1990.Google Scholar

37 N, RodleyThe Treatment of Prisoners under International Law (OUP Oxford 1999) 279–81.Google Scholar

38 GA Res 39/46,10 Dec 1984, 39 UN GAOR Supp (No 51) 197, UN Doc E/CN 4/1984/72.Google Scholar

39 GA Res A/Res/57/199, 18 Dec 2002.Google Scholar

40 See B, Emmerson and A, AshworthHuman Rights and Criminal Justice (Sweet & Maxwell London 2001) 479514.Google Scholar

41 S, Livingstone‘Prisoners’ Rights in the Context of the European Convention on Human Rights' (2000) 2 Punishment and Society 309–24.Google Scholar

42 Peers v Greece (2001) 33 EHRR 1192.Google Scholar

43 Recommendation R (87)3 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of EuropeGoogle Scholar

44 eg, Recommendation R (82) 16 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on Prison Leave; Recommendation R (82)17 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe Concerning Custody and Treatment of Dangerous Prisoners; Recommendation R (84)12 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe Concerning Foreign Prisoners; Recommendation R (89) 12 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on Education in Prison; Recommendation R (92)17 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe Concerning Consistency in Sentencing; and Recommendation R(2003) 23 of the Committee of Ministers on the Management by Prison Administrators of Life Sentence and Other Long-Term Prisoners.Google Scholar

45 Art 1 of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment ETS 126.Google Scholar

46 MD, Evans and R, MorganPreventing Toriure: A Study of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment (Clarendon Press Oxford 1998);Google ScholarA, CasseseInhuman States Imprisonment, Detention and Toriure in Europe Today (Polity Cambridge 1996).Google Scholar

47 In Africa the 1996 Kampala Declaration on Prison Conditions in Africa is both a substantive catalogue of prison standards and an instrument that called successfully for the African Commission on Human and People's Rights to institute a Special Rapporteur on Prisons and Conditions of Detention: Prison Reform International Prison Conditions in Africa (Paris Prison Reform International 1997).Google Scholar

48 See the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons (1994) 33 ILM 1529, art 18 of which provides that States Parties that accede to the Convention by means of ratification or accession adopt the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners as part of their domestic law. Also of relevance is the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture 25 ILM 519.Google Scholar

49 M, PlachtaTransfer of Prisoners under International Instruments and Domestic Legislation (Freiburg im Breisgau Max Planck Institut fur auslandisches und internationales Strafrecht 1983).Google Scholar

50 Kress, and Sluiter, above n 11 at 1766.Google Scholar

51 This relates both to the term of imprisonment and to the conditions of imprisonment. In some countries it is still possible to sentence prisoners to a particular type of prison—a ‘penitentiary’ for example, which has a harsher regime than an ‘ordinary’ prison. Two solutions have presented themselves, that of ‘conversion’ of the sentence into a sentence of the State to which the prisoner is transferred and that of ‘adoption’ of the sentence by such a State: Plachta above n 49 at 411–18.Google Scholar

52 Plachta, above n 49 at 435–8.Google Scholar

53 Strasbourg 21 Mar 1983 CETS 112. This is a European-based convention that is also open to non—European countries.Google Scholar

54 See ‘Eighth Report on the Draft Code of Crimes Against the Peace and Security of Mankind’ 2(1) Yearbook of the International Law Commission (1990) 2739, para 101 (UN Doc A/CN.4/430) and Add 1. ‘Ninth Report on the Draft Code of Crimes Against the Peace and Security of Mankind’ 2(1) Yearbook of the International Law Commission (1991) 37–44 (UN Doc A/CN 4/435 and Add 1) Detailed descriptions of the debates are to be found in Schabas above n 22 at 743–756 andGoogle ScholarD, van Zyl SmitLife Imprisonment as the Ultimate Penalty in International Law. A Human Rights Perspective10 Criminal Law Forum (1999) 5 at 1925.Google Scholar

55 Emphasis added. There is also a subsection 3 that deals with asset forfeiture, which is not relevant here.Google Scholar

56 Art 27.Google Scholar

57 Art 28.Google Scholar

58 Art 23 (penalties), Art 26 (enforcement of sentences), and Art 27 (commutation of sentences) of the ICTR Statute.Google Scholar

59 H, CorellNuremberg and the Development of an International Criminal Law’ (1995) 149 Military Law Review 87 at 93–5.Google Scholar

60 The Security Council was prepared to alienate the government of Rwanda, which had initially called for the establishment of an international tribunal, but in the end formally opposed it and refused to co—operate with it, on the grounds that offenders convicted by the national courts of Rwanda would face the death penalty while those convicted by the Tribunal of arguably more serious crimes would not. See P Akvahan ‘The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda: The politics and pragmatics of punishment’ (1996) 90 American Journal of International Law 501.Google Scholar

61 More fully, see D, van Zyl SmitPunishment and Human Rights in International Criminal Justice’ (2002) 2 Human Rights Law Review 117;Google ScholarS, BeresfordUnshackling the Paper Tiger-The Sentencing Practices of the ad hoc International Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda’ (2001) 1 International Criminal Law Review 3390;Google ScholarJ, Meernik and K, KingThe Sentencing Determinants of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia: An Empirical and Doctrinal Analysis’ (2003) 16 Leiden Journal of International Law 717–50.Google Scholar

62 Rule 1 of the Rules Governing the Detention of Persons Awaiting Trial or Appeal before the Tribunal or otherwise Detained on the Authority of the Tribunal It/32/rev 8 (‘Rules of Detention’).Google Scholar

63 First Annual Report of the International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991 29 Aug 1994 UN Doc A/49/342-S/1994/1007, para 98.Google Scholar

64 Ibid para 99.

65 Bassiouni, M Cherif and P, ManikasThe Law of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (Transnational Publishers Irving—on—Hudson NY 1996) 705–74.Google Scholar

66 It flows directly from Rule 24 of the Rules of Evidence and Procedure, which provides that ‘the Judges shall meet in plenary to…(v) determine or supervise the conditions of detention’.Google Scholar

67 See, eg, Rule 63B of the Rules of Detention, which provides that the ‘[t]he Registrar may refuse to allow a person to visit a detainee if there is reason to believe that the purpose of the visit is to obtain information which may be subsequently reported to the media.’Google Scholar

68 See the Decision of the Deputy Registrar in the Case of Prosecutor v Slobodan Milosević IT-02–54 on 8 Jan 2004; and the Decision of the Deputy Registrar in the Case of Prosecutor v Vojislav Seselj IT-03–67-PT of 6 Feb 2004.Google Scholar

69 Similar action was taken by the registrar of the Special Court for Sierra Leone to restrict contact with a high profile detainee, Hinga Norman, for a period of 14 days. Its validity was upheld by the Acting President of the Court: ‘Decision on Motion to reverse the Order of the Registrar under Rule 48(C) of the Rules of Detention 18 May 2004 Prosecutor v Hinga Norman SCSL-04–14-PT.Google Scholar

70 See the ‘Regulations for the Establishment of a Complaints Procedure for Detainees’ issued by the Registrar of the ICTY pursuant to Rules 84–88 of the Rules of Detention.Google Scholar

71 Rule 24(v) of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence IT/32/Rev 24 and Rule 6 of the Rules of Detention.Google Scholar

72 See the Press Release of the ICTY: ‘Completion of the Internal Inquiry into the Death of Slavko Dokmanović’: CC/PIU/334-E, The Hague, 23 July 1998: Accessed on 9 June 2004 at <www.un.org/icty/latest/index.htm>. The inquiry has met with a critical reception from Aleksandar Fatic’ who claims that Judge Rodrigues, who conducted the inquiry, made a cynical report which failed to uncover the poor supervision of prisoners in the Tribunal's detention unit: A, FatićReconciliation via the War Crimes Tribunal? (Ashgate Aldershot 2000). Fatić is, however, highly critical of all aspects of the Tribunal's workGoogle Scholar

73 ‘Decision on Zdravko Mucić's Motion for the Exclusion of Evidence’ Case no IT-96–21-T, 21 April 1997.Google Scholar

74 Art 18(3) of the Statute.Google Scholar

75 Rule 42A of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence.Google Scholar

76 IT-96–22-T Trial Chamber, 29 Nov 1996.Google Scholar

77 Ibid at para 74, internal references omitted. The Trial Chamber based its right to supervise how persons it has convicted are treated on Art 27 of the Statute and Rule 104 of the Rules.

79 See European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) 11th General Report on the CPT's Activities Covering the Period 1 January to 31 December 2000 Strasbourg, 3 Sept 2001, CPT/Inf (2001) 16 para 17 (and Appendix 5 which contains the agreement reached between CPT and the Tribunal).Google Scholar

80 Cf also Art 27 of the ICTR Statute.Google Scholar

81 Art 28 of the ICTY Statute.Google Scholar

82 D, Tolbert and A, Rydberg ‘Enforcement of Sentences’ in R, May et al (eds) Essays on ICTY Procedure and Evidence in Honour of Gabrielle Kirk McDonald (Kluwer The Hague 2001) 533–43.Google Scholar

83 A pragmatic way of avoiding this difficulty has been found in the case of Spain, where the maximum sentence allowed by national law is 30 years. The agreement with Spain specifies that it will only accept prisoners who have been sentenced to fixed terms of less man 30 years: see ICTY Press Release, The Hague, 11 Dec 2001.Google Scholar

84 D, van Zyl SmitTaking Life Imprisonment Seriously (Kluwer The Hague 2002).Google Scholar

85 J, MacLean ‘The Enforcement of Sentence in the Tadić Case’ in H, Fischer, C, Kress and SR, Lüder (eds) International Prosecution of Crimes Under International Law: Recent Developments (Berlin Verlag Berlin 2001) 728–50.Google Scholar

86 Quoted by MacLean, op cit at 735.Google Scholar

89 Rule 125 General Standards for Granting Pardon or CommutationGoogle Scholar

90 Prosecutor v Tadić, U-94–1-S, 14 July 1997 para 76.Google Scholar

91 Prosecutor v Stakić IT-97–24-T, 31 July 2003 section V ‘Disposition’.Google Scholar

92 Recorded as ‘Order of the President on the Early Release of Dragan Kolundzija’ Judicial Supplement 30 The Prosecutor v Sikirica, Dosen and Kolundzija FT-96–8-S.Google Scholar

93 Prosecutor v Plavšić YT-00–29&40n-S, Trial Chamber, 27 Feb 2003.Google Scholar

94 In German law, for example, this distinction between Strafvollstreckung and Strafvollzug is of considerable significance: for an analysis of its place in the law governing the enforcement of international sentences see Kress and Sluiter above n 11.Google Scholar

95 C, KelkRecht voor Gedetineerden (Alphen aan de Rijn Samson 1978).Google Scholar

96 Art 103.1 of the ICC Statute.Google Scholar

97 Art 103.4 of the ICC Statute.Google Scholar

98 Art 77.l (b). The individual circumstances of the offender must be considered as well.Google Scholar

99 Art 77.1 (a).Google Scholar

100 For a more critical view, see R Henham ‘Some Issues for Sentencing in the International Criminal Court’ (2003) 53 ICLQ 81–114.Google Scholar

101 Art 110.3. Only in instances where the State designated to carry out the sentence insists on retaining its own powers of pardon may the case be referred back to the court at an earlier stage. Kress and Sluiter describe these two forms that release process could possibly take as the ‘model case scenario’ and the ‘exceptional case scenario’ respectively: Kress and Sluiter fn 8 above) at 17911794. If in these instances the Court were to order release before the otherwise mandatory minimum terms had been served, it would reintroduce discrimination by the back door, as prisoners held in some States but not in others could benefit. However, in my view, States are unlikely to adopt this course of action and the Court could systematically nullify it by transferring prisoners if its use were threatened.Google Scholar

102 Rule 223 (b) of the draft Rules of Evidence and Procedure.Google Scholar

103 Rule 223 (d). This rule fits the increased emphasis that the Rome Statute, in contrast with the statutes of the ICTY and the ICTR, places on the importance of victims: W, SchabasAn Introduction to the International Criminal Court (CUP Cambridge 2001) at 147–50. This is in line with the increased recognition given to victims in international human rights law, but it does raise questions about the position of offenders whose interests might be in tension with those of victims.Google Scholar

104 For a journalistic but comprehensive published account, see The Independent ‘Guantanamo Bay’ 18 Jan 2002 at 4. For a critical view of the conditions of detention see J Steyn ‘Guantánamo Bay: The Legal Black Hole’ (2004) 53 ICLQ 1 at 7–8.Google Scholar

105 For an example of scepticism about the prisoner of war status of the detainees but support for it in individual cases, see K, AndersonWhat to do with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda terrorists? A qualified defense of military commissions and United States policy on detainees at Guantanamo Bay naval base’ (2002) 25 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 591.Google Scholar

106 For a summary of these conditions, see H, McCoubryInternational Humanitarian Law (2nd edAshgate/DartmouthAldershot 1998) 155–9;Google ScholarD, Fleck (ed) The Handbook of International Humanitarian Law in Armed Conflict (OUP Oxford 1995) 347–61.Google Scholar

107 Art 5 of Geneva Convention m (Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, 12 Aug 1949,75 UNTS 135).Google Scholar

108 GH, AldrichThe Taliban, Al Qaeda, and the Determination of Illegal Combatants’ (2002) 96 AJIL 891. See alsoGoogle ScholarN, McDonald and S, SullivanRational Interpretation in Irrational Times: The Third Geneva Convention and the “War on Terror”’ (2003) 44 Harvard International Law Journal 301.Google Scholar

109 For an outline of the approach adopted by the US government, see DM, AmannGuantánamo’ (2004) 42 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 263 at 269–70.Google Scholar

110 Odah v United States 321 F. 3d 1134 (DC); Coalition of Clergy, Lawyers and Professors v Bush 310 F. 3d 1153 (9th Cir 2002). A subtle but telling critique of the attitude of the US and its courts may be found in the judgment of the Court of Appeal for England and Wales in Abbasi and Another v Secretary of State of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Secretary of State for the Home Department [2002] EWCA Civ 1598 at paras 58–67.Google Scholar

111 Rasul v Bush 124 S Ct 2686 (2004), 2004 WL 1432134 (US)Google Scholar

112 The fact that the US eventually undertook to treat them more or less like prisoners of war without recognising their status was a diplomatic concession rather than an acceptance of a body of humanitarian or human rights-based prison law.Google Scholar

113 See, in general, J, Hughes and F, Liebaut (eds) Detention of Asylum Seekers in Europe: Analysis and Perspectives (Martinus Nijhof The Hague 1998).Google Scholar

114 Soering v United Kingdom (1989) 11 EHRR 439. Cf. also D v United Kingdom (1997) 24 EHRR 423 where an analogous question arose. In this instance the European Court ruled that if D, who was suffering from AIDS, was released from prison and deported to the Caribbean, that would be a form of inhuman treatment in contravention of art 3 of the ECHR as he could not obtain adequate medical treatment there.Google Scholar

115 Art 80 ICC Statute. At the end of the meeting in Rome that adopted the ICC's Statute the chair also read out a statement that declared that there was no international consensus on the death penalty and that the exclusion of the death penalty in the ICC Statute should have no impact on the development of customary international law. Schabas, who quotes the statement in full, argues that its effect may be the opposite of what its supporters intended. By stating that the ICC Statute does not impact on customary international law about the death penalty, the statement may be conceding that in other circumstances the abolition of the death penalty is a concern of customary international law: W, SchabasLife, death and the crime of crimes’ (2000) 2 Punishment and Society 263–85.Google Scholar

116 The mandatory life sentence for murder in the United Kingdom has been subject to devastating criticism, which has simply been ignored by politicians and the courts over many years. For a summary of the political debates, see Windlesham, Responses to Crime vol 2 (Clarendon Press Oxford 1993) at 308–46;Google ScholarWindlesham, Responses to Crime vol 3 (Clarendon Press Oxford 1996) at 331–84. For a recent example of the UK courts still failing to recognize the objections, see R v Lichniak; R v Pyrrah [2002] UKHL 47, [2003] 1 AC 903 (HL(E)).Google Scholar Similarly powerful critiques of mandatory life imprisonment, indeed of life imprisonment generally, have been made in Germany: See HM, WeberDie Abschaffung der lebenslangen Freiheitsstrafe: fur die Durchsetzung des Verfassunganspruchs (NomosBaden–Baden 1999).Google Scholar

117 Kalashnikov v Russia (2003) 36 EHRR 587 and cf also Iorgov v Bulgaria and GB v Bulgaria, both decided on 11 Mar 2004 (contravention of Art 3 ECHR).Google Scholar

118 Messina v Italy 25498/94 28 Sept 2000 (contravention of Art 8 ECHR). See also Öcalan v Turkey (2003) 37 EHRR 238.Google Scholar

119 Ezah and Connors v United Kingdom 39665 and 40086/98 (Grand Chamber)–9 Oct 2003 (Contravention Art 6 ECHR).Google Scholar

120 See, eg, Regina v Secretary of State for the Home Department and another, Ex Parte Hargreaves and others [1997] 1 WLR 906. On the deference still displayed by English courts in this area of prison law generally, see L, LazarusContrasting Prisoners’ Rights: A Comparative Examination of England and Germany (OUP Oxford 2004);Google ScholarS, Livingstone, T, Owen, and A, MacDonaldA Prison Law (OUP Oxford 2003).Google Scholar

121 R, MorganDeveloping Prison Standards Compared’ (2000) 2 Punishment and Society 325–42;Google ScholarR, Morgan ‘International Controls on Sentencing and Punishment’ in Tonry, M and Frase, R (eds) Sentencing and Sanctioning in Western Countries (OUP Oxford 2001) 379403Google Scholar

122 Adopted on 18 Dec 2002 at the fifty-seventh session of the General Assembly of the United Nations by Resolution A/RES/57/199. Protocol available for signature, ratification and accession as from 4 Feb 2003.Google Scholar

123 R, Sparks, A, Bottoms, and W, HayPrisons and the Problem of Order (Clarendon Press Oxford 1994).Google Scholar

124 JB, JacobsStateville: The Penitentiary in Mass Society (University of Chicago Press Chicago 1997).Google Scholar

125 M, Feeley and E, RubinJudicial Policy Making and the Modern State: How the Couris Reformed America's Prisons (CUP Cambridge 1998).Google Scholar

126 K, McEvoyParamilitary Imprisonment in Norihern Ireland: Resistance Management and Release (OUP Oxford 2001) at 137–77.Google Scholar