Citation

van Zyl Smit D. Int. Compar. Law Q. 2005; 54(02): 357-386.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, British Institute of International and Comparative Law, Publisher Cambridge University Press)

DOI

10.1093/iclq/lei004

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Every State in the modern world has a prison system, established and purportedly administered in terms of formal legal rules. Most such systems house both sentenced and unsentenced prisoners and have minimum standards and rules that are common to all prisoners. Although there is now a considerable body of international law that aims to provide a human rights framework for the recognition of the rights of all prisoners, the universality of the prison and the ubiquity of international human rights law have not meant that there is international consensus about what imprisonment should be used for and how prisons should be administered. The prison as a penal institution has remained firmly rooted in the nation State and in national legal systems. In this respect penal institutions are different from other detention facilities, most particularly those for prisoners of war, which have long been governed by the rules of international humanitarian law.