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Chapter Nine - International Prison Standards and Transnational Criminal Justice

from Part IV - Transnational Legal Ordering and Human Rights Standards in Criminal Justice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2020

By
Dirk van Zyl Smit
Edited by
Gregory Shaffer  and
Ely Aaronson
Gregory Shaffer
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
Ely Aaronson
Affiliation:
University of Haifa, Israel
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Summary

Prison standards are an important element of transnational criminal justice. This chapter shows how legal standards governing prison conditions emerged at the international and regional levels and considers how, increasingly, they have gained legitimacy. It then describes how these standards are applied in a way that contributes to a recognizable transnational legal order in respect of prison conditions, which has real impact at the national level. The chapter pays close attention to the transfer of prisoners between states, as a mechanism that operates transnationally and, in the process, enhances the importance of international prison standards. It concludes that the benefits of common prison standards are mixed. On the positive side, they have the potential to give states that are asked to extradite suspects, or transfer sentenced prisoners, leverage to demand the improvement of prison conditions in the receiving states. There is, however, a risk that states will accept and implicitly endorse sub-standard prison conditions in order to rid themselves of troublesome offenders.

Keywords

Prisonshuman rightsinternational standardscriminal justicetransfer of prisonersextraditiontransnational lawinternational lawprisoners’rights
Type
Chapter
Information
Transnational Legal Ordering of Criminal Justice , pp. 261 - 292
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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