Against the Death Penalty

Jon Yorke, Senior Lecturer in Law, BCU School of Law, Birmingham City University, UK

Contents: Preface; Introduction, Roger Hood; Part I Regional Conspectus and Analysis: The United Nations and abolition of the death penalty, William A. Schabas; The evolving human rights discourse of the Council of Europe: renouncing the sovereign right of the death penalty, Jon Yorke; Taking the death penalty debate further: the African Commission on Human and People's Rights, Lilian Chenwi; Challenging the death penalty in the Caribbean: litigation at the Privy Council, Quincy Whitaker. Part II Perspectives and Questions for Retentionist Countries: Constraining America's death penalty: the 8th Amendment and excessive punishment, Julian Killingley; Walking the 8th Amendment tightrope: 'time served' in the United States Supreme Court, Jane Marriott; A crisis of confidence: Americans' doubts about the death penalty, Richard C. Dieter; The death penalty in China: towards the rule of law, Nicola Macbean; The abolitionist movement in death penalty-friendly Asia: the cases of South Korea and Taiwan, Sangmin Bae. Part III Overview of Abolition Strategies and Alternatives to the Death Penalty: Capital punishment: a review and critique of abolition strategies, Peter Hodgkinson, Seema Kandelia and Lina Gyllensten; A fate worse than death? The problems with life imprisonment as an alternative to the death penalty, Rachael Stokes; Index.