Litigating against the Death Penalty for Drug Offences: An interview with Saul Lehrfreund & Parvais Jabbar

Saul Lehrfreund MBE and Parvais Jabbar are Executive Directors of the The Death Penalty Project, which they have run since its inception. Based at Simons Muirhead & Burton in London, The Project works to promote and protect the human rights of those facing the death penalty.  Although operating in all jurisdictions where the death penalty remains an enforceable punishment, its actions are concentrated in those countries that retain the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London and in other Commonwealth countries, principally the Caribbean, Africa and South East Asia. Alongside its activities representing individuals at risk of execution,

The Project also provides expert support to local lawyers and human rights organisations in bringing legal challenges to the application of the death penalty, with notable success in a variety of jurisdictions. The Project’s commitment to providing free legal representation to men and women on death row has been critical in identifying and redressing a significant number of miscarriages of justice, promoting minimum fair trial guarantees, and establishing violations of domestic and international human rights.

Lehrfreund and Jabbar have been involved in litigating or assisting in a number of challenges to the mandatory death penalty for drug offences.  Most recently in 2010, they assisted in the Yong Vui Kong challenge in Singapore. The International Journal on Human Rights and Drug Policy sat down with them to discuss their experience in these cases.

Download the full interview, published in Vol I of the International Journal on Human Rights and Drug Policy

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D. Barrett & P. Veerman, Children who use Drugs: The Need for More Clarity on State Obligations in International Law, International Journal on Human Rights and Drug Policy, Vol I, 2010

This article focuses on drugs and the rights of the child. It is an important debate given that the Convention on the Rights of the Child specifically refers to drugs, the only core UN human rights treaty to do so. Article 33 reads:

States Parties shall take all appropriate measures, including legislative, administrative, social and educational measures, to protect children from the illicit use of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances as defined in the relevant international treaties, and to prevent the use of children in the illicit production and trafficking of such substances.

It therefore covers a lot of ground. The authors are in the process of developing a Commentary on article 33 of the CRC to be published by Brill/Martinus Nijhoff as part of their series of commentaries on each article of the CRC later in 2011. The present article focuses on drug use specifically and the place of children within the drug control treaties.

ABSTRACT

Drug use among children has two systems of international law that may be brought to bear to ensure that States take measures to protect children from drug related harms. Neither, however, appears to have been adequately applied to the issue. This commentary raises a number of questions related specifically to the UN drug conventions and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Broadly – how ‘up to date’ are the UN drug control conventions in the 21st century, and in the light of drug use among children? How does the CRC (coming from the different tradition of international human rights conventions) fit in? What does the CRC add, including via its various other interconnected provisions? Finally, what is the relationship between these two branches of international law?

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Y. McDermott, Yong Vui Kong v. Public Prosecutor and the Mandatory Death Penalty for Drug Offences in Singapore: A Dead End for Constitutional Challenge?, International Journal on Human Rights and Drug Policy, Vol I, 2010

ABSTRACT

This article examines constitutional challenges to the mandatory death  sentence in Singapore, with particular reference to the most recent case of  Yong Vui Kong v. Public Prosecutor (2010). It discusses whether the Court of  Appeal was too hasty in disregarding more recent jurisprudence of the Privy Council, which held the mandatory death sentence as a form of inhuman treatment or punishment. It also examines the customary international law prohibition of the mandatory death penalty, and the imposition of the mandatory death penalty for drug offences as a breach of the equality guarantee in Singapore’s constitution. The article reveals a dismal future for a nuanced and sensible approach towards drug crime in Singapore, in that the latest case closes off many avenues for constitutional litigation.

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A. Crocket, The Function and Relevance of the Commission in Narcotic Drugs in the pursuit of Humane Drug Policy (or the ramblings of a bewildered diplomat), International Journal on Human Rights and Drug Policy, Vol I, 2010

While not a legal article, this commentary from Alison Crocket is an easy to understand and important insight into a key element of the international drug control system – the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND). Crocket discusses the limits and potential of the CND, the harm reduction discourse at the Commission and the risks and benefits of human rights advocacy at this forum.

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Launch of the International Journal on Human Rights and Drug Policy – Beirut, 6th April

The inaugual issue of the International Journal on Human Rights and Drug Policy will be launched during the Harm Reduction 2011 conference in Beirut, Lebanon.   This will be done during a special session in the conference Dialogue Space at 12:30pm. The Journal editors and well as several of the authors will be in attendence.