Inhuman and Degrading Punishment,Dignity, and the Limits of Retribution

The recent judgment of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Vinter and others v United Kingdom provides a much needed clarification of the parameters of the prohibition on inhuman and degrading punishment under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as it applies to whole life orders of imprisonment under mandatory life sentences – essentially, life imprisonment without parole. The Grand Chamber's judgment refines Strasbourg doctrine on life imprisonment and the prospect of release and illuminates key principles concerning inhuman and degrading punishment under Article 3 of the ECHR. This article considers the judgment's profound significance in relation to both human rights and penology.     

Positive identification by a skull with multiple epigenetic traits and abnormal structure of the neurocranium, viscerocranium, and the skeleton

Wormian bones are small ossicles appearing within the cranial sutures in more than 40% of skulls, most commonly at the lambdoid suture and pterion. During the skeletal analysis of an unidentified male war victim, we observed multiple wormian bones and a patent metopic suture. Additionally, the right elbow was deformed, probably as a consequence of an old trauma. The skull was analyzed by cranial measurements and computerized tomography, revealing the presence of cranial deformities including hyperbrachicrania, localized reduction in hemispheral widths, increased cranial capacity, and sclerosis of the viscerocranium. Besides unique anatomical features and their anthropological value, such skeletal abnormalities also have a forensic value as the evidence to support the final identification of the victim.     

The Association Between Family Violence,Depression and Anxiety Among Women Whose Partners Have Been Treated for Alcohol Dependence

Journal of Family Violence - The negative effects of men’s excessive alcohol consumption on family members are well known. However, less is known about how men’s alcohol dependence is...     

Taking Life and Liberty Seriously: Reconsidering Criminal Liability Under Article 2 of the ECHR

What is the relationship between the right to life and criminal liability, and what should it be, given the significance we rightly attribute both to human life and to human freedom? This article explores the circumstances in which the European Court of Human Rights imposes a positive obligation to criminalise and pursue criminal forms of redress, and concludes that the Court's doctrine carries the potential of both coercive overreach and dilution of the right to life itself. These problems are compounded by opacity in the Court's doctrine. I propose a way forward that takes both the right to life and human freedom seriously.     

Yugoslavia,an ‘Almost Forbidden Word’ Cultural policy in times of nationalism—interview with Dubravka Ugresic

In the 1990s wars in former Yugoslavia many intellectuals, including writers, artists, and scholars, supported nationalist right-wing regimes and promoted narratives of national exceptionalism to justify relevant political decisions and cultural policies. The intellectuals who opposed these regimes were frequently silenced (censored and/or assassinated) and many of them eventually left the country. The following interview features the renowned writer Dubravka Ugresic, who analyzes Croatia's cultural and political climate at the outset of the war and explains how her opposition to the wartime Croatian regime led to her public ostracism and subsequent decision to emigrate to the Netherlands. Emphasizing the role that nationalist intellectuals played in altering former Yugoslav cultural policies, Ugresic discusses the politics of language, literature, and literary canon in the new states that emerged from Yugoslavia's violent dismemberment. Ugresic also reflects on how the new politics of ethnic identity affects international book markets in terms of publishing decisions, distribution of literature, and classification of writers according to national affiliation. In this process, Ugresic notes, Yugoslavia itself has become an “almost forbidden word,” and its nurturing of multiethnic and supranational literature and culture has been supplanted by narrowly nationalist cultural policies.     

Relatively Absolute? The Undermining of Article 3 ECHR in Ahmad v UK

The recent decision of the European Court of Human Rights in Ahmad v UK dangerously undermines the well‐established case law of the Court on counter‐terrorism and non‐refoulement towards torture, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. Although ostensibly rejecting the ‘relativist’ approach to Article 3 ECHR adopted by the House of Lords in Wellington v Secretary of State for the Home Department, the Court appeared to accept that what is a breach of Article 3 in a domestic context may not be a breach in an extradition or expulsion context. This statement is difficult to reconcile with the jurisprudence constante of the Court in the last fifteen years, according to which Article 3 ECHR is an absolute right in all its applications, including non‐refoulement, regardless of who the potential victim of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment is, what she may have done, or where the treatment at issue would occur.     

Güler and Öngel v Turkey: Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Strasbourg's Discourse on the Justified Use of Force

This article discusses the discourse on the justified use of force in the Strasbourg Court's analysis of Article 3. With particular focus on the judgment in Güler and Öngel v Turkey, a case concerning the use of force by State agents against demonstrators, it addresses the question of the implications of such discourse, found in this and other cases, on the absolute nature of Article 3. It offers a perspective which suggests that the discourse on the justified use of force can be reconciled with Article 3's absolute nature.