Male-centric prison policies promote the marginalization of women prisoners where prison facilities deem them victims to stereotypical notions of the ideal woman. In cases where social rules are not adhered to, women experience exacerbated pains of punishment, such as psychological and physical trauma induced through violent strip searches often carried out by male officers. This alerts us to question how societal perceptions and correctional policies impact the way women are

The Potential Impact of the Nationality and Borders Bill on Women Trafficked to the UK (Metin Ozer, published 11th December 2019, downloaded from Unsplash, https://unsplash.com/photos/spFYbCSF-Ec [24/03/22]) Content Warning: discussion of human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and rape. The Nationality and Borders Bill will disadvantage victims of trafficking, especially female victims who face gender-specific difficulties. Clause 58 ignores the victim’s need for time to pr

A recent report titled Lost Identity: Transgender Persons Inside Indian Prisons’ published by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative has identified that the present law on prison administration in India fails to accommodate the special rights and needs of transgender prisoners. The Prisons Act 1894, is strictly gender-binary and results in the degrading treatment faced by transgender prisoners, a violation of NALSA v. UOI, which identified transgender people as a separate l

Due to COVID 19 and an overburdened criminal court system, the current backlog in the Crown Courts has risen to 54,000 unheard cases. This backlog threatens the right to a trial in a reasonable time, a human right protected by the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR)(Article 6). Some jury trials have been postponed to 2023, severely infringing defendants’ rights. The Government’s proposal to deal with the backlog is inadequate.

Summary: The article focuses on:  The normalisation of dehumanising language in death penalty trials  The adverse effects of using such narratives vis-à-vis the application of capital punishment  The need for empathetic judging in capital trials Introduction: Over the years, courts have been increasingly employing dehumanising language in death penalty cases; a practice that has led to the ‘othering’ of capital defendants. Studies show that the death penalty disproportiona

On Thursday 11th June, Trump ordered to sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC)-an independent adjudicating body, almost two months after the Court decided to probe in the alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan after the US troops entered the land in 2003. Established in 1998, after the Yugoslavian and Rwandan crisis, it started functioning after the Rome Statute (a multilateral treaty) came into force in 2002. Almost a year after 9/11

In a chilling exemplification of a repressive regime, Egyptian security forces under President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi have been accused of arbitrarily arresting and torturing children aged as young as 12. A report documented by Human Rights Watch (HRW) underscores that prosecutors and judges have exacerbated these abuses through due process violations and unfair trials. The unnerving account details the use of varied modus operandi for torture. To enlist a few: seven children w

Z I Khan Panna v Bangladesh (‘Case’) is a landmark judgment in Bangladesh, wherein the Supreme Court interpreted the indemnity clause in the Constitution in a progressive and harmonious manner. This case relates to the infamous ‘Operation Clean Heart’ ordered by the then Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) – Jamaat alliance led government, during the period between October 2002 to January 2003, with a view to allegedly end countrywide violent crimes.

A 19 year old British girl has been convicted of public mischief in the Famagusta District Court in Cyprus for allegedly falsely accusing 12 Israeli tourists of raping her.[1] The judge made this decision on the basis of a retracted criminal complaint, which she says she signed at the police station without receiving legal advice and after police intimidation. The UK Foreign Office has raised fair trial concerns, while domestic and international human rights groups have widel

In the wake of the horrific deaths of 39 Vietnamese nationals whose bodies were found in a lorry in Essex in October and the human trafficking charges pressed on the suspects, it is timely to consider the legal responses to human trafficking. Whilst trafficking has clearly been established as a crime domestically (s.2, Modern Slavery Act 2015) and internationally (UN Palermo Protocol, within the Organized Crime Convention), the human rights framework for human trafficking is

When representatives of the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels agreed to a UN-brokered ceasefire for the port city of Hodeidah on 13 December, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres lauded the efforts as ‘real progress towards future talks to end the conflict.

Although it is all too easy to believe that slavery ended with the success of the abolitionist movement up to 200 years ago, a flurry of news stories in recent weeks has brought the issue of modern day slavery to our attention. Significant coverage stemmed from the high-profile Rooney case, where a UK family was convicted of numerous counts of modern slavery offences. This was swiftly followed by the first review of the UK legislation in a Backbench Business Committee debate

Twenty-four years after the ICTY was established by the UN Security Council, the Tribunal concluded its final trial, upholding the sentence of former Bosnian Croat commander Slobodan Praljak to 20 years imprisonment for war crimes. The events which followed will unfortunately be unavoidably engrained into the Tribunal’s history, with the war criminal swallowing a vial of cyanide and killing himself.

On the 7th December the Council of Europe accepted the UK government’s proposal to end the blanket ban on UK prisoners’ right to vote. This proposal is a response to the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling in Hirst v UK (No 2) [2005]. In this case the Court held that the UK’s blanket ban on prisoner votes is against Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 of the ECHR (the “Right to free elections”). This article outlines a couple of key questions that the “prisoner votes saga” raises.

When will the international community’s response to the persecution of the Uighurs in Xinjiang become proportional to the severity of the crimes that China has been accused of committing?

Over 40 members of the Oxford Climate Justice Campaign and Cambridge Zero Carbon Society and Oxford Climate Justice planned to drop a 20m-long banner over Hammersmith Bridge, with the words “Oxbridge Come Clean”, as the men’s boats passed underneath the bridge. This was a repeat of similar action that had been staged at last year’s Boat Race, in which students dropped a smaller banner reading “Oxbridge Divest”. According to a statementreleased by Cambridge Zero Carbon Society

With the exponential growth of media interest in Xinjiang’s ‘re-education camps’ in recent months, the so-called ‘story China wants the world to forget,’[1] it is safe to say that Xi’s China has steadfastly abandoned Deng Xiaoping’s policy of ‘keeping a low profile.’ (taoguangyanghui)

Where are you going for your next holiday? Hopefully not Syria or Iraq. Not only is it rather dangerous, it now seems likely that it will be illegal to go there without a reasonable excuse. Clause 4 of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill will make it a criminal offence for a UK national or resident to enter or remain in a ‘designated area’. The Secretary of State decides what this constitutes; the designation must be considered necessary to prevent people from visi