Abstract
In addition to its introduction of the evolving standards of decency principle, two further points from Chief Justice Warren’s opinion in Trop v Dulles warrant reflection at this stage. First, he noted that, ‘in an enlightened democracy such as ours’, it should have been expected that the punishments clause had rarely required definition. Second, he cited a United Nations (UN) survey, indicating that, with the exception of only the Philippines and Turkey, ‘[t]he civilized nations of the world are in virtual unanimity that statelessness is not to be imposed as punishment for crime.’ The first statement has already been addressed by previous chapters, which showed that Warren’s optimism was followed by half a century of judicial delineation of the Eighth Amendment. While such optimism, activism, and, subsequently, evolutive interpretation shown by this line of jurisprudence must be commended from an interpretivist standpoint, a consideration of the further controversy surrounding Warren’s statement in support of transnational constitutionalism is inescapable.
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Notes
- 1.
Trop v Dulles 356 US 86 (1958) 100.
- 2.
Ibid., 102 fn 37, UN Laws Concerning Nationality, (1954) UN Doc ST/LEG SER B/4.
- 3.
Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (Gerald Duckworth 1977) 40.
- 4.
Carrie Menkel-Meadow, ‘Why and How to Study “Transnational” Law’ (2011) 1 Irvine LR 97, 103.
- 5.
Emmerich de Vattel, The Law of Nations (1758) (T & JW Johnson ed 1883), an early copy was borrowed by Washington in 1789. The Week Staff, ‘George Washington’s 221-year overdue library book: A timeline’ (21 May 2010) http://theweek.com/article/index/203282/george-washingtons-221-year-overdue-library-book-a-timeline, accessed 1 May 2017.
- 6.
Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ Statute) (adopted 26 June 1945, entered into force 24 October 1945) 59 Stat 1031; UNTS 993, Article 38(1)(a) & (b).
- 7.
To gain acknowledgement as law, this behaviour must be in accordance with a ‘constant and uniform useage’. Asylum Case (Colombia v Perú) (judgment of 20 November 1950) [1950] ICJ Rep 266, 277.
- 8.
Rebecca Wallace and Olga Martin-Ortega, International Law (7th edn, Sweet & Maxwell 2013) 9–10.
- 9.
The ICJ held in 1969 that they regarded certain treaty provisions ‘as reflecting, or as crystallizing, received or at least emergent rules of customary international law’. North Sea Continental Shelf Cases (Germany v Denmark; Germany v Netherlands) (judgment of 20 February 1969) [1969] ICJ Rep 4, 40.
- 10.
See Richard Baxter, ‘International Law in “Her Infinite Variety”’ (1980) 29 ICLQ 549.
- 11.
Jan Klabbers, ‘The Redundancy of Soft Law’ (1996) 65 Nordic Journal of International Law 173.
- 12.
Andrea Bianchi, Daniel Peat and Matthew Windsor, Interpretation in International Law (OUP 2015) 99–101.
- 13.
International law is capable of self-execution in US law, when Congress ratifies treaties, giving them the status of domestic law without the need for further legislative effort. This concept is not itself immune to controversy, with various doctrines expounded in numerous research articles. See Carlos Vázquez, ‘The Four Doctrines of Self-Executing Treaties’ (1995) 89 American Journal of International Law 695, nn 1–4.
- 14.
Thirty Hogsheads of Sugar v Boyle 13 US (9 Cranch) 191 (1815) 198.
- 15.
Lawrence v Texas 539 US 558 (2003).
- 16.
Dudgeon v United Kingdom (1981) 4 EHRR 149, [36], quoting Article 8 of the ECHR: ‘1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence. 2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society.’
- 17.
Jeffrey Toobin, The Nine (Anchor 2008) 213–214 (noting Kennedy’s annual trips to Europe and the advice he gave to post-USSR nations in helping them to establish new constitutions).
- 18.
Lawrence (n 15) 576. At oral argument in Roper v Simmons 543 US 551 (2004), Kennedy had alluded to a similar sentiment, asking ‘do we ever take the position that what we do here should influence what people think elsewhere?’ Roper v Simmons No 03-633 (2003) oral argument.
- 19.
Lawrence (n 15) 598.
- 20.
Ibid., quoting Foster v Florida 537 US 990 (2002) 990 n* (cert denied).
- 21.
Julie Payne, ‘Comment: Abundant Dulcibus Vitiis, Justice Kennedy: In Lawrence v. Texas, an Eloquent and Overdue Vindication of Civil Rights Inadvertently Reveals What Is Wrong with the Way the Rehnquist Court Discusses Stare Decisis’ (2004) 78 Tulsa LR 969, 1004.
- 22.
Ryan Black, Ryan Owens, Daniel Walters and Jennifer Brookhart, ‘Upending a Global Decline’ (2014) 103(1) Georgetown LJ 1, 10.
- 23.
US Const, Section 2, Clause 2: ‘Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties’.
- 24.
Robert Delahunty and John Yoo, ‘Against Foreign Law’ (2005) 29 Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 291, 295–296.
- 25.
Which refers to ‘a decent respect to the opinions of mankind’. Archives, The Declaration of Independence (1776) http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html, accessed 1 May 2017.
- 26.
John Jay, The Federalist (Terence Ball ed, CUP 2003) No 3; No 42 (James Madison); No 83 (Alexander Hamilton).
- 27.
6 US (2 Cranch) (1804).
- 28.
See Rose v Himley 8 US (4 Cranch) 241 (1808), applying post-1776 English law.
- 29.
M’Coul v Lekamp’s Administratrix 15 US (2 Wheat) 111 (1817) 117: ‘Whatever might have been the doctrine of the civil, or Roman law, on this subject, it is certain that by the codes of the nations of the European continent [are] evidence against those with whom they deal.’
- 30.
98 US 145 (1878) 164 (‘Polygamy has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people’); ibid., 165–167 (citing historical and contemporaneous English law at length).
- 31.
175 US 677 (1900) 700.
- 32.
Steven Calabresi and Stephanie Zimdahl, ‘The Supreme Court and Foreign Sources of Law’ (2005) 47 William and Mary LR 743.
- 33.
543 US 551 (2004).
- 34.
Ibid., 575–578. Article 37: ‘Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age.’
- 35.
Article 4(5): ‘Capital punishment shall not be imposed upon persons who, at the time the crime was committed, were under 18 years of age or over 70 years of age; nor shall it be applied to pregnant women.’
- 36.
Article 6(5): ‘Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age and shall not be carried out on pregnant women.’ Reservations: 138 Cong Rec S4781-01 (2 April 1992) ‘US Reservations, Declarations, and Understandings, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’, http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/usdocs/civilres.html, accessed 1 May 2017.
- 37.
Roper (n 33) 577: ‘only seven countries other than the United States have executed juvenile offenders since 1990 […] Since then each of these countries has either abolished capital punishment for juveniles or made public disavowal of the practice.’
- 38.
536 US 304 (2002).
- 39.
Ibid., 317 fn21.
- 40.
130 S Ct 2011 (2010) 2033.
- 41.
Ibid., citing Enmund v Florida 458 US 782 (1982) 796 fn22.
- 42.
Ibid., 2034. Citing Michelle Leighton and Connie de la Vega, ‘Sentencing Our Children to Die in Prison: Global Law and Practice’ (2007) 42 University of San Francisco LR 983 (which concluded that only two nations were actively imposing LWOP on juvenile offenders).
- 43.
Justice Elena Kagan replaced John Paul Stevens in the term following Graham. Kagan has shown similar commitment to transnational comparison, though not inside the Eighth Amendment sphere. Kagan was understandably (given the heat surrounding this topic) cagey when probed at confirmation, but indicated that she would be willing to ‘look to foreign or international law to resolve the parties’ claims’ in certain, limited circumstances. SCOTUSBlog, ‘Senator John Cornyn Questions for the Record Elena Kagan, Nominee, Supreme Court of the United States’, http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Written_Cornyn.pdf, accessed 1 May 2017. Justice Neil Gorsuch replaced Antonin Scalia after a year of limbo, taking office in Spring 2017. Early readings of his judicial philosophy indicate that he will follow Scalia’s suit with respect to a rejection of comparativism, but this does not shift the swing of the Court. The departure of a more liberally inclined justice in 2017–2020 could have far wider-reaching repercussions for the Court’s leaning.
- 44.
As well as the assessments in this subsection, further examples can be found in Coker v Georgia 433 US 584 (1977) 596 fn10 (‘It is […] not irrelevant here that out of 60 major nations in the world surveyed in 1965, only 3 retained the death penalty for rape where death did not ensue’); Thompson v Oklahoma 487 US 815 (1988) 830 (considering the views of ‘other nations that share our Anglo-American heritage, and by the leading members of the Western European community’).
- 45.
Herbert McClosky, ‘Consensus and Ideology in American Politics’ (1964) 58 APSR 361, 362.
- 46.
Ibid.
- 47.
Kathleen Knight, ‘Transformations of the Concept of Ideology in the Twentieth Century’ (2006) 100 APSR 619, 623.
- 48.
See generally Black et al. (n 22), who use empirical analysis to refute the argument that those who are more “left, liberal” are more likely to cite transnational comparisons than “right, conservative” justices. Note Justice Scalia’s opinion in Schriro v Summerlin 542 US 348 (2004) 356, where he saw fit to consult foreign law.
- 49.
Rorie Solberg and Eric Waltenburg, The Media, the Court, and the Misrepresentation (Routledge 2015) Chapter 1.
- 50.
Lee Epstein, Andrew Martin, Kevin Quinn and Jeffrey Segal, ‘Ideological Drift among Supreme Court Justices’ (2007) 101(4) Northwestern ULR 1.
- 51.
Linda Greenhouse, Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun’s Supreme Court Journey (Times Books 2006) 235.
- 52.
One pool of commentators argues that political ideology is corrosive to the democratic nature of an independent judicial branch. These commentators were especially vociferous following Bush v Gore 531 US 98 (2000), with accusations that the Court collapsed ‘the boundary between law and politics’ and ‘uncomfortably confused and improperly mingled the special and constrained form of politics called constitutional law with the more general and unconstrained forms of politics in partisan political struggle.’ Jack Balkin, ‘Bush v. Gore and the Boundary between Law and Politics’ (2001) 110 YLJ 1407, 1443, 1458; Alan Dershowitz, Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000 (OUP 2003) 174 (describing Bush as ‘the single most corrupt decision in Supreme Court history, because it is the only one […] where the majority justices decided as they did because of the personal identity and political affiliation of the litigants’).
- 53.
Black et al. (n 22), generally.
- 54.
521 US 702 (1997). With thanks to Andrew Novak for pointing this out.
- 55.
Quigley traces American nationalism to a strengthened sense of territory, loyalty, and nationality following Independence and the Revolutionary War of the latter half of the nineteenth century. See generally Paul Quigley, Shifting Grounds (OUP 2011).
- 56.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: Part 2 (Henry Reeve (trans), Saunders and Otley 1840) 36.
- 57.
Lowell Barrington, ‘Nationalism and Independence’ in Lowell Barrington (ed) After Independence (University of Michigan Press 2006) 29 fn73. Orwell was somewhat more critical, describing nationalism as ‘power-hunger tempered by self-deception’. George Orwell, ‘Notes on Nationalism’ (1945) 1 Polemic 1.
- 58.
James Madison, ‘To the Republican Meeting of Cecil County, Maryland March 5th, 1810’ (Founders Online) http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/03-02-02-0321, accessed 1 May 2017.
- 59.
Quigley (n 55) 23.
- 60.
Race: In addition to slavery, see ‘Three-Fifths Compromise’ embodied in the original Constitution (US Const, Article I, Section 2, Paragraph 3); Dred Scott v Sandford 60 US 393 (1857) (holding African Americans incapable of becoming US citizens); Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow (The New Press 2012) (arguing that strong racial-exclusion continues). Gender: ‘when the true history of the anti-slavery cause shall be written, women will occupy a large space in its pages’ (Frederick Douglass, Autobiographies (Literary Classics 1994) 907). ‘[V]ery remarkable that abolitionists who felt so keenly the wrongs of the slave should be so oblivious to the equal wrongs of their own mothers, wives, and sisters.’ Elizabeth Cady Stanton, ‘Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences 1815–1897’ in Geoffrey Ward (ed) Not For Ourselves Alone (Knopf 1999) 29. External exclusion: Chinese Exclusion Act (CEA) 1882 (prohibiting entry to the US by any Chinese labourer for ten years, also showing class bias, since services such as law and teaching were exempted under the statute).
- 61.
For a summary see Roger Alford, ‘Four Mistakes in the Debate on “Outsourcing Authority”’ (2006) 69 Albany LR 653.
- 62.
Delahunty and Yoo (n 24) 325. US Const, Article VI, Clause 2: ‘This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.’
- 63.
Lawrence Lessig, ‘Fidelity in Translation’ (1993) 71 Texas LR 1165, 1260.
- 64.
Roy Walmsley, ‘World Prison Population List (11th edition)’ (International Centre for Prison Studies) http://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/world_prison_population_list_11th_edition_0.pdf, accessed 1 May 2017; Sentencing Project, ‘Incarceration’, www.sentencingproject.org/template/page.cfm?id=107, accessed 1 May 2017.
- 65.
John Pratt, ‘Scandinavian Exceptionalism in an Era of Penal Excess’ (2008) 48 British Journal of Criminology 119.
- 66.
Delahunty and Yoo (n 24) 298.
- 67.
US Const, Article I Section I (Congressional power); Section 9 (actions prohibited for Congress); Article II (‘The Executive Power shall be vested in a President’); Article III (Judicial power).
- 68.
Charles-Louis, Second Baron of Brède and Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws (1748) (Kitchener ed 2001) 173: ‘there is no liberty, if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive’; Madison, The Federalist (n 26) No 51: ‘separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of government […] is admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation of liberty.’
- 69.
Ibid., 622–623, Scalia, J (dissenting).
- 70.
Roger Alford, ‘ Roper v. Simmons and Our Constitution in International Equipoise’ (2005) 53(1) University of California Los Angeles LR 1, 26.
- 71.
Constitution Restoration Act of 2005 S520, HR1070 (109th Cong).
- 72.
WAFF, ‘Judge Roy Moore Introduces Constitution Restoration Act 2004’ (13 February 2004) www.waff.com/Global/story.asp?S=1644862, accessed 1 May 2017.
- 73.
Mark Tushnet, ‘The “Constitution Restoration Act” and Judicial Independence’ (2006) 56 Case Western LR 1071, 1079 fn44: ‘[a] litigant might claim that reference to non-US law is essential to [his] success on the merits, and that precluding such reference is unconstitutional.’
- 74.
Oklahoma Const, Art VII §1(C).
- 75.
For an analysis of the amendment and its subsequent legal challenges, see John Parry, ‘Oklahoma’s Save Our State Amendment’ (2012) 64 Oklahoma LR 161.
- 76.
Awad v Ziriax 670 F.3d 1111 (10th Cir 2012).
- 77.
Alabama, Arizona, Missouri, New Mexico, South Carolina, Texas, and Wyoming. See Eugene Volokh, ‘Foreign Law in American Courts’ (2014) 66 Oklahoma LR 219, 235 fn67.
- 78.
Philip Racusin, ‘Looking at the Constitution through World-Colored Glasses’ (2006) 28 Houston Journal of International Law 913, 921.
- 79.
Dred Scott (n 60) 410.
- 80.
Richard Posner, ‘Foreword: A Political Court’ (2005) 119 HLR 32, 85.
- 81.
Gretchen Chapman and Eric Johnson, ‘Incorporating the Irrelevant’ in Thomas Gilovich, Dale Griffin and Daniel Kahneman (eds) Heuristics and Biases (CUP 2002) 133–134.
- 82.
Patricia Wald, ‘Some Observations on the Use of Legislative History in the 1981 Supreme Court Term’ (1983) 68 Iowa LR 195, 214, quoting Judge Harold Leventhal, speaking in person to Wald.
- 83.
William Dixon and Bruce Moon, ‘Political Similarity and American Foreign Trade Patterns’ (1993) 46 Political Research Quarterly 5, 6 (discussing how countries with shared experiences are more likely to trade and to find the resultant transaction costs to be diminished).
- 84.
Black et al. (n 22) 26.
- 85.
Ibid., 26–27, 43. In addition, if a democratically elected ‘leader decides to renege on an international agreement, the leader will suffer potentially heavy domestic political costs because such an action will likely be out of step with domestic political opinion’. Brian Lai and Dan Reiter, ‘Democracy, Political Similarity, and International Alliances, 1816–1992’ (2000) 44 Journal of Conflict Resolution 203, 206.
- 86.
Ibid., 36.
- 87.
Jiunn-Rong Yeh and Wen-Chen Chang, ‘The Emergence of Transnational Constitutionalism: Its Features, Challenges and Solutions’ (2008) 27 Penn State International LR 89, 96.
- 88.
Ibid., 108.
- 89.
Racusin (n 78) 939.
- 90.
Jeremy Waldron, ‘Foreign Law and the Modern Ius Gentium’ (2005) 119 HLR 129, 140.
- 91.
Ibid., 132. McCrudden describes a context-specific approach: Christopher McCrudden, ‘Human Dignity and Judicial Interpretation of Human Rights’ (2008) 19 EJIL 655.
- 92.
Frank Michelman, ‘Reflection’ (2004) 82 Texas LR 1737, 1758–1759.
- 93.
Questions Relating to the Obligation to Prosecute or Extradite (Belgium v Senegal) 2009 ICJ Rep 139, [99].
- 94.
Anna Conley, ‘Torture in US Jails and Prisons’ (2013) 7 ICL Journal 415, 416.
- 95.
For a broader discussion on this topic see Roozbeh (Rudy) Baker, ‘Customary International Law in the 21st Century’ (2010) 21 European Journal of International Law 173.
- 96.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) UNGA Res 217A(III), UN Doc A/810 71, Article 5.
- 97.
Helge Rostad, ‘History of International Collaboration in Corrections’ in George Kurian, World Encyclopedia of Police Forces and Correctional Systems (Gale 2006) 92, 94.
- 98.
Peter Scharff Smith, ‘Solitary Confinement—History, Practice, and Human Rights Standards (2009) 181 Prison Service Journal 3, 7.
- 99.
(Adopted 30 August 1955, entered into force 31 July 1957) UN Doc A/CONF/611, Annex I.
- 100.
Elizabeth Vasiliades, ‘Solitary Confinement and International Human Rights’ (2005) 21 American University International LR 71, 83 (quoting Nan Miller, ‘International Protection of the Rights of Prisoners’ (1995) 26 California Western International Law Journal 139, 148).
- 101.
Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Adopted 30 August 1955, entered into force 31 July 1957) UN Doc A/CONF/611, Annex I, R32.1-2: ‘Punishment by close confinement…shall never be inflicted [where it] may be prejudicial to the physical or mental health of a prisoner.’
- 102.
UN Economic and Social Council, ‘United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Mandela Rules) (2015) ‘E/CN.15/2015/L.6/Rev.1.
- 103.
In addition to Obama’s statement, see Justice Kennedy’s concurrence in Davis v Ayala, 576 US ___ (2015) (noting that SHU had been hidden from the public conscience but could offend the Eighth Amendment) and Justice Breyer’s dissent in Glossip v Gross 576 US ___ (2015) (noting that this was especially the case in respect of a prisoner on death row for an inordinate time, where the ‘dehumanizing effect [of SHU] is aggravated by uncertainty as to whether a death sentence will in fact be carried out’).
- 104.
UNGA Res 45/111 (1990) UN Doc A/45/49, 45 UN GAOR Supp (No 49A) 200.
- 105.
Ibid., 45 UN GAOR Supp (No 49A) 205.
- 106.
The Mandela Rules (n 102) RR45(1)-(2).
- 107.
(Adopted 10 December 1984, entered into force 26 June 1987) UN Doc A/39/51.
- 108.
(Adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171.
- 109.
UNHRC, ‘CCPR General Comment No 20: Article 7’ (10 March 1992) UN Doc HRI/GEN/1/Rev 9 (Vol I); UNHRC, ‘Abuse of the human rights of prisoners in the United States’ (17 February 2012) UN Doc A/HRC/19/NGO/31.
- 110.
UNGA, ‘Interim report of the Special Rapporteur’ (5 August 2011) UN Doc A/66/268; UNHRC, (7 October 2013) ‘US: “Four decades in solitary confinement can only be described as torture”—UN rights expert’, www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13832, accessed 1 May 2017.
- 111.
UNCAT (n 107) Article 16.
- 112.
In a five-yearly HRC review of the US human rights record (in May 2015), several UN member states condemned the nation’s use of SHU. See UPR, (11 May 2015) ‘List of Recommendations: United States’, https://tinyurl.com/m8a6ksg, accessed 1 May 2017.
- 113.
Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (entered into force 22 June 2006) UNGA RES/57/199 (2002).
- 114.
Human Rights Watch, ‘United States Ratification of International Human Rights Treaties’, http://bit.ly/1L6MoHy, accessed 1 May 2017.
- 115.
The Californian prison system, which has been overseen federally since the 1990s, finally showed some promise following Plata. See Center for Constitutional Rights, ‘Ashker v. Governor of California’, http://bit.ly/1TRDUOB, accessed 1 May 2017.
- 116.
(Entered into force 2 September 1990) UNGA Res 44/25 (1989) UN Doc A/44/49, Article 37(b): ‘[SHU] shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.’
- 117.
(Entered into force 3 May 2008) UNGA Res 61/106 (2006) UN Doc A/61/49.
- 118.
UNCAT (n 107) Article 1.
- 119.
Giovanni Sartori, ‘Comparing and Miscomparing’ (1991) 3 Journal of Theoretical Politics 243, 246.
- 120.
Todd Landman, Issues and Methods in Comparative Politics (3rd edn, Routledge 2008) 5–8.
- 121.
487 US 815 (1988) 830.
- 122.
Black et al. (n 22) 26.
- 123.
Varying definitions of liberal democracy exist, but useful characteristics are provided by Anne Phillips, ‘Dealing with Difference’ in Seyla Benhabib (ed) Democracy and Difference (PUP 1996) 143.
- 124.
Will Kymlicka, ‘Three Forms of Group-Differentiated Citizenship in Canada’ in Benhabib (ed) (ibid.) 153.
- 125.
OAS Res XXX (1948) OEA/Ser L V/II 82 doc 6 rev 1, 17 (1992) (“the ADHR”).
- 126.
Ibid., Article XXV.
- 127.
Conley (n 94) 440.
- 128.
Roper (n 33) 575.
- 129.
Thomas Simon, Law and Philosophy (McGraw-Hill 2001) 134–135.
- 130.
539 US 558 (2003).
- 131.
Dudgeon v United Kingdom (1981) 4 EHRR 149, [36].
- 132.
Lawrence (n 15) 576.
- 133.
Toobin (n 17) 213.
- 134.
Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1950).
- 135.
Selmouni v France (2000) 29 EHRR 403, [101].
- 136.
Ibid., Article 6, which gives a 266-word recantation of the right to a fair trial, with a series of minimum rights.
- 137.
Ireland v UK (1978) Series A no 25, [167].
- 138.
Ibid., [167]: ‘five [stress] techniques, as applied in combination, undoubtedly amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment.’
- 139.
Salman v Turkey, App no 21986/93 (judgment 27 June 2000), [114].
- 140.
Selmouni (n 135) [101].
- 141.
Lindström and Mässeli v Finland, App no 24630/10 (judgment 14 April 2014), [39].
- 142.
Kudła v Poland (2000) 35 EHRR 198, [92].
- 143.
Van der Ven v The Netherlands (2003) 38 EHRR 46, [48]; V v United Kingdom (1999) 30 EHRR 121, [71]; Valašinas v Lithuania, App no 44558/98 (judgment 24 July 2001), [102].
- 144.
Dougoz v Greece (2002) 34 EHRR 61, [46].
- 145.
Ramirez Sanchez v France (2007) 45 EHRR 49, [119].
- 146.
Ibid., (eight years).
- 147.
Mathew v The Netherlands (2006) 43 EHRR 23 (that the defendant could not adapt to prison life was an insufficient justification for SHU); Iorgov v Bulgaria (2005) 40 EHRR 7 (three years of unjustified SHU was deemed offensive under Article 3).
- 148.
App no 24407/03 (ECtHR, 7 January 2010) [70].
- 149.
Aswat v United Kingdom App no 17299/12 (ECtHR, 16 April 2013).
- 150.
Rod Morgan, ‘International Controls on Sentencing and Punishment’ in Michael Tonry and Richard Frase, Sentencing and Sanctions in Western Countries (OUP 2001) 389.
- 151.
Vasiliades (n 100) 91 (the European regime ‘is becoming known for its progressive policies on […] prisoner rights’ and noting that Europeans are the ‘global leaders’ in this field).
- 152.
CPT, ‘Report to the Portuguese Government on the visit to Portugal carried out from 14 to 26 May 1995’ CPT/Inf (96) 31 (1996), [95]: ‘The Committee is particularly concerned when it finds a combination of those [harmful] factors. The cumulative effect of such conditions will be extremely detrimental for prisoners.’
- 153.
452 US 337 (1981).
- 154.
CPT, ‘Report to the Bulgarian Government on the visit to Bulgaria from 26 March to 7 April 1995’ CPT/Inf (97) 1 [Part 1] (1995), [109], [110].
- 155.
CPT, ‘CPT Standards’ CPT/Inf/E (2002) 1 (Rev 2015).
- 156.
Ibid., S56(b) fn1: ‘The maximum period should certainly be lower in respect of juveniles.’
- 157.
Trey Bundy, (Center for Investigative Reporting, 5 March 2014) ‘Sixteen, Alone, 23 Hours a Day, in a Six-by-Eight-Foot Box’, https://tinyurl.com/CellSize68, accessed 1 May 2017.
- 158.
Craig Haney, ‘Statement: California Assembly Public Safety Committee, August 23, 2011’, https://tinyurl.com/CHaneyTestimony, accessed 1 May 2017.
- 159.
See, for example, the decisions in Vinter v United Kingdom (2012) 55 EHRR 34, [104] and Hutchinson v United Kingdom [2017] ECHR 65.
- 160.
The ADHR (n 125) Article XXV.
- 161.
OAS TS No 36, 1144 UNTS 123 (entered into force 18 July 1978) Article 5.
- 162.
For a review of the functions and processes of these organs, see Daniel Moeckli, Sangeeta Shah, and Sandesh Sivakumaran, International Human Rights Law (OUP 2010) 438–441.
- 163.
IACHR, Principles and Best Practices on the Protection of Persons Deprived of their Liberty in the Americas (2008) (131st Session, 3–14 March 2008).
- 164.
Ibid., PXXII(3).
- 165.
American Convention on Human Rights, OAS TS No 36, 1144 UNTS 123 (entered into force 18 July 1978), Article 5(2).
- 166.
Laurence Burgorgue-Larsen, Amaya Ubeda de Torre (Rosalind Greenstein trans), The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (reprint edn, OUP 2013) 469; Zach Dyer, (Tico Times, 10 July 2015) ‘Costa Rica high court: prison officials must address ‘cruel and degrading’ conditions’, http://bit.ly/1JA275a, accessed 1 May 2017.
- 167.
Velasquez Rodriguez v Honduras (1988) IACtHR Series C No 4, [516].
- 168.
Ibid.
- 169.
Cantarol-Benavides v Peru (2000) IACtHR Series C No 69, [100], [102].
- 170.
Montero Aranguren et al v Venezuela (2006) IACtHR Series C No 150, [117]. It is noteworthy that the ECtHR cited this paragraph itself in Babar Ahmad v United Kingdom (2012) App no 24027/07 (Fourth Section). See Council of Europe, References to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights (CoE 2012) 20.
- 171.
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Press Release, (28 July 2009) IACHR Visits US Immigration Detention Facilities, http://www.cidh.org/Comunicados/English/2009/53-09eng.htm, accessed 1 May 2017.
- 172.
Organization of American States, (18 July 2013) ‘IACHR Expresses Concern over excessive use of solitary confinement in the United States’, http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/mediacenter/Preleases/2013/051.asp, accessed 1 May 2017.
- 173.
Roper (n 33) 604–605 (O’Connor, J, dissenting).
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Eastaugh, C. (2017). Transnational Law. In: Unconstitutional Solitude. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61735-0_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61735-0_6
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