Life imprisonment is a sentence, following a criminal conviction, which gives the state the power to detain a person in prison for life, that is, until they die there.[1] Most countries in the world accept that some type of life sentence may be imposed on some persons convicted of serious offenses. However, given the continuing and, in all likelihood, expanding use of life imprisonment, the development of environments that minimise the potential human costs of these sanctions is a critical concern. Over recent decades, international, regional, and national standards of human rights have emerged as increasingly important means of protecting prisoners against abuse or the types of painfulness and treatment, including life imprisonment.[2]
In that context, an online international conference titled “Life Imprisonment in Asia: Law and Practice” will be co-hosted on 5-6 October 2021 by:
- School of Law, University of Nottingham
- School of Law, Vietnam National University Hanoi
- International Organization of Educators and Researchers Inc. (IOER)
- Asian Law Centre, Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne
The themes of the online conference will include:
- Imposing life imprisonment (on whom, for what, and how is life imprisonment imposed)
- The treatment of life sentence prisoners (regime, conditions, access to rehabilitation)
- Release of life sentence prisoners (including conditional release, recall to prison, if applicable)
- The application of international human rights standards to life sentences
- Life sentence prison population statistics
[1] Van ZYL SMIT, DIRK, and CATHERINE APPLETON. "Describing Life." In Life Imprisonment: A Global Human Rights Analysis, 35-85. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: Harvard University Press, 2019. Accessed February 13, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvckq60v.5.
[2] DIRK van ZYL SMIT and CATHERINE APPLETON (2019), ibid, pp. 104-125