Foreign prisoners in Europe: an analysis of the 2012 Council of Europe Recommendation and its implications for international penal policy

The issue of migration is attracting significant media and political attention in Europe. Migration has been one of the causes of the rapid rise in the number and proportion of foreigners in national prisons. In response to this problem, the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers in 2012 adopted a recommendation concerning the treatment of foreign prisoners. This article analyses the penological and human rights implications of this recommendation in relation to its objectives to reduce the number of foreigners in custody, improve the regime experienced by foreign offenders and enhance the prospects for their successful reintegration. While the 2012 Recommendation makes important contributions to regional penal policy, it also contains notable gaps and limitations. The paper discusses the significance of omissions in relation to the (potential) role of consular representatives, dealing with nationals detained abroad and the use of inter-state transfers. Despite these criticisms and political resistance to some proposals in this field, there appears to be wide spread support for the Recommendation at a practitioner level. It may also have significance beyond domestic policy. There is a new and growing sub-category of foreign prisoner in Europe: the international prisoners convicted by international criminal courts that are serving their sentences in the prison systems of cooperating States. The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential influence regional penal policy can have on the implementation of international custodial sanctions

Report on consent in international prisoner transfers

This report, presented to the Council of Europe's Council for Penological Cooperation (PC-CP)(66th Meeting, 8-10 December 2010), outlines the different approaches adopted by the various treaties governing prisoner transfers in relation to consent, and analyses the human rights implications of these approaches

Releasing international prisoners

This book chapter analyses the rules and procedures that govern the release of international prisoners (persons convicted for the commission of international crimes by international criminal courts) at the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Mechanism for the International Criminal Tribunals (MICT). It begins by setting out the legal framework governing release decisions at the MICT and ICC and proceeds with discussions of key elements of this framework, namely, eligibility for release, the procedure used to make release decisions and the criteria that judges have to consider in reaching their decision. It also analyses the subtle yet strong potential influence that states can have on the exercise of judicial discretion in the international criminal justice system

International movement of prisoners

This article analyses and compares the evolution of the procedures and motivations for the international movement of prisoners under two systems operating in the United Kingdom – the inter-state prisoner transfer system and the international criminal justice enforcement system. It sets out the basic conditions for transfers under the current systems before outlining recent changes in the inter-state system to the requirement to obtain the consent of the proposed transferee (the prisoner) and the state that will implement the sentence. It proceeds to discuss the potential consequences and benefits these procedural modifications may entail for both systems. The paper concludes by evaluating the different and changing rationales used to justify the international movement of prisoners

Report on consent in international prisoner transfers

This report, presented to the Council of Europe's Council for Penological Cooperation (PC-CP)(66th Meeting, 8-10 December 2010), outlines the different approaches adopted by the various treaties governing prisoner transfers in relation to consent, and analyses the human rights implications of these approaches

Prison matters : towards the development of the international penal system

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo