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Confronting Capital Punishment in Asia

Human Rights, Politics and Public Opinion

Surya Deva editor Roger Hood editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:7th Nov '13

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Confronting Capital Punishment in Asia cover

With the strengthening focus worldwide on human rights, there has been a rapid increase in recent years in the number of countries that have completely abolished the death penalty. This is in recognition that it is a violation of the right to life and the right to be free from cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. There has, simultaneously, been pressure on countries that still retain capital punishment to ensure that they at least apply the United Nations minimum human rights safeguards established to protect the rights of those facing the death penalty. This book shows that the majority of Asian countries have been particularly resistant to the abolitionist movement and tardy in accepting their responsibility to uphold the safeguards. The essays contained in this volume provide an in-depth analysis of changes in the scope and application of the death penalty in Asia with a focus on China, India, Japan, and Singapore. They explain the extent to which these nations still fail to accept capital punishment as a human rights issue, identify impediments to reform, and explore the prospects that Asian countries will eventually embrace the goal of worldwide abolition of capital punishment.

To what extent does popular support for discontinuation of the death penalty have to be presented for abolitionist laws to be legitimate? Do changes in public attitudes toward the death penalty necessarily precede abolition, or do cultural shifts occur later as a by-product of bold legal or political reforms? In raising these and other questions, this volume not only adds to our understanding of capital punishment in an area of obvious interest, but opens new and promising directions for further inquiry. * Stephen Noakes, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books *

ISBN: 9780199685776

Dimensions: 241mm x 162mm x 23mm

Weight: 662g

336 pages