Pre-trial Detention: Human Rights, Criminal Procedural Law and Penitentiary Law, Comparative Law

It is estimated that in the course of a year approximately 10 million people will pass through pre-trial detention. Although no adequately functioning criminal justice system can presently do entirely without detaining any suspects, pre-trial detention thus remains problematic in the context of human rights, the detainee’s family and society.

This volume therefore offers a wide variety of topics that are relevant to pre-trial detention. Themes discussed are, for instance: developments that affect the application of pre-trial detention; relevant international and national human rights standards as well as monitoring systems; pre-trial detention of specific groups, and alternatives to pre-trial detention. Moreover, this volume contains chapters on 21 individual countries from around the world. On the basis of these, this volume not only examines whether and how international human rights standards on detention are influencing national law and practice, and the extent to which international norms are suitable to do so, it also intends to reveal strengths and weaknesses of domestic law systems as such.