This Practitioners’ Guide addresses the global, growing trend towards the wrongful criminalisation of conduct associated with poverty, homelessness and status by presenting a human rights-based approach to criminal law, based on general principles of criminal law and international human rights law and standards. This approach can be used to address the detrimental impact of the criminalisation of this conduct on health, equality and other human rights and to further its decriminalisation.
The Guide, the first of its kind, aims to serve as a practical tool and comparative law casebook to justice sector actors and others – such as legislatures, government officials, policy-makers, national human rights institutions, oversight bodies, victims’ groups, human rights advocates, civil society organizations and academics – offering a clear, accessible and operational legal framework and practical legal guidance on a human rights-based approach to criminal law. It aims to assist justice sector actors and others in pursuing legal advocacy and reform efforts for the review and repeal of discriminatory laws that are antithetical to human rights and the rule of law.