A Practitioner’s Guide: A human rights-based approach to criminal law, including the decriminalization of conduct associated with poverty and status

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.

Year: 2024
Resource Type:
Guidelines
Training Materials
Flagship
Themes:
Activism
Alternatives to Criminalisation
Cost of Exclusion
Courts Systems
Fees and Fines
Human Rights
Petty Offences
Policing
#PoorNotGuilty
Public Health
Pre-trial Detention
Prisons
Protests
Torture
Use of Public Spaces
Region:
Global
Africa
Australia & the Pacific Islands
Asia
Europe
Latin America & the Caribbean
Middle East
North America
People Groups:
Activists
Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC)
Children & Young People
Elderly People
Human Rights Defenders
Informal Workers
LGBTQIA+ persons
Marginalised Ethnic Persons
People in Detention
People with Disabilities
People affected by Displacement (including migrants and refugees)
People who use Drugs
People facing Exclusion
People experiencing Homelessness or live in informal settlements
People experiencing Poverty
Protestors
Sex Workers
Women and Girls
Duty Bearers
Approach:
Advocacy
Capacity Building
Law Reform
Policy Reform
Research
Campaign Partner:
Institute of Commonwealth Studies
International Commission of Jurists