Capital Punishment: New Perspectives

Description

This collection asks questions about the received wisdom of the debate about capital punishment. Woven through the book, questions are asked of, and remedies proposed for, a raft of issues identified as having been overlooked in the traditional discourse. It provides a long overdue review of the disparate groups and strategies that lay claim to abolitionism. The authors argue that capital litigators should use their skills challenging the abuses not just of process, but of the conditions in which the condemned await their fate, namely prison conditions, education, leisure, visits, medical services, etc. In the aftermath of successful constitutional challenges it is the beneficiaries (arguably those who are considered successes, having been ’saved’ from the death penalty and now serving living death penalties of one sort or another) who are suffering the cruel and inhumane alternative. Part I of the book offers a selection of diverse, nuanced examinations of death penalty phenomena, scrutinizing complexities frequently omitted from the narrative of academics and activists. It offers a challenging and comprehensive analysis of issues critical to the abolition debate. Part II offers examinations of countries usually absent from academic analysis to provide an understanding of the status of the debate locally, with opportunities for wider application. Dedication Contents List of Figures and Tables Notes on Contributors Introduction • Peter Hodgkinson Part I: New Perspectives and Challenging Questions 1 A Critique of Litigation and Abolition Strategies: A Glass Half Empty • Kerry Ann Akers and Peter Hodgkinson 2 Juvenile Death Penalty in Islamic Countries: The Road to Abolition is Paved with Paradox • Sanaz Alasti 3 Talking to Each Other in the Dark: The American Abolition Movement and the Christian Opportunity • Jeanne Bishop and Mark Osler 4 Non-refoulement Obligations Under International Law in the Context of the Death Penalty • Yuval Ginbar, Jan Erik Wetzel and Livio Zilli 5 Victims: Transforming the Death Penalty Debate • Jeanne Bishop and Mark Osler 6 The Greater Stigma? Family Visits to the Condemned • Seema Kandelia and Peter Hodgkinson 7 Children of Parents Sentenced to Death • Helen Kearney 8 Death Penalty Internships in the American South • Steven Shatz Part II: Country Perspectives 9 Reconciling Human Rights and the Application of the Death Penalty in Malawi: The Unfulfilled Promise of Kafantayeni v. Attorney General • Sandra Babcock and Ellen Wight McLaughlin 10 Taiwan: Cutting the Gordian Knot – Applying Article 16 of the ICCPR to End Capital Punishment • Nigel Li, Wei-Jen Chen and Jeffrey Li 11 Transnational Networks and Norm Compliance: Stopping Executions in Belarus • Volha Charnysh 12 Afghanistan: Death Penalty at the Crossroads • Art Cody and Dominique Day 13 The Death Penalty in Canada: Ethnicity, Abolition and the Current Debate • Margaret Dudgeon 14 Successful Capital Litigation in Uganda: A Counterintuitive Approach? • Graeme L. Hall 15 The End of the End: Understanding the Paradox of Capital Sentencing in Liberia • Jessie Munton 16 The Political Use of Capital Punishment in Communist Romania between 1969 and 1989 • Radu Stancu 17 Capital Punishment in Vietnam: Status and Perspective • Giao Vu Cong Index