Institute of Commonwealth Studies: Today in Fiji, Commonwealth Law Ministers noted in their 2026 Outcome Statement satisfaction with the production of the Practitioners’ Guide on a Human Rights-Based Approach to Criminal Law, Including the Decriminalisation of Conduct Associated with Poverty and Status (Guide), produced in partnership with the Commonwealth Secretariat, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and the Global Campaign to Decriminalise Poverty and Status.

Earlier in the day, in an address to the Law Ministers, Professor Kingsley Abbott, Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, outlined that across the world, including in the modern Commonwealth, certain criminal procedures, criminal codes, and policing policies used to criminalise poverty, status and activism, are inconsistent with a human rights-based approach to criminal law.

Read more about the joint project here