The Council of Europe, the oldest European intergovernmental Organisation (1949), well known also for its European Court of Human Rights, has developed an abundant body set of standards and of case-law on the protection of the right to life, prevention of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and other issues impacting the treatment and conditions of detention of persons deprived of their liberty.
The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, operating since 1989, carries out visits to all types of places of detention to assess the conditions and treatment of persons deprived of their liberty.
The European Committee on Crime Problems elaborates the standards in the criminal justice area, was set up in 1958, and its subordinate body, the Council for Penological Co-operation, set up in 1980 specifically deals with issues related to prisons, probation and juvenile justice. The first European Prison Rules were elaborated in 1973. Since then, the EPR have been revised four times, most recently in 2020.
The joint intervention by three Council of Europe officials working respectively in the judicial, monitoring and standard setting branches of the Organisation will seek to explain the way in which the various organs of the Council of Europe interact together in order to ensure a professional human rights-based approach to imprisonment across Europe and how to keep the balance between, on the one hand, punishment, retribution and protection of the society, and, on the other hand, the need to assist persons reintegrate society desist from further offending.
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Kresimir Kamber
Lawyer, European Court of Human Rights, Council of Europe, France
Krešimir Kamber obtained a Master of Laws diploma from the Rijeka University Faculty of Law (Croatia) where he also finished further studies in criminal sciences and criminal law. He obtained his PhD from the Ghent University Faculty of Law and Criminology (Belgium) after completing research in the field of human rights law and procedural criminal justice. He works as a lawyer in the Directorate of Jurisconsult of the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights. He is the coordinator for the criminal justice-related issues within the Court. He also holds the position of a postdoctoral research fellow in the Ghent University Faculty of Law and Criminology. Previously he worked in private practice and for the public prosecution service of Croatia. He has widely published and regularly gives lectures on various issues of human rights law and criminal justice. He also participates in various initiatives of the governmental and non-governmental sectors on the issues related to human rights and criminal justice.
