Launch of Practitioners' Guide on the Decriminalisation of Poverty and Status

A human rights-based approach to criminal law: new Practitioners’ Guide on decriminalisation of Poverty and Status
Today, the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (ICwS) and its partners, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and the Commonwealth Secretariat launched a new Practitioner’s Guide on the decriminalisation of poverty and status at a packed side event at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) Samoa 2024.
The event was led by a panel of speakers from across the world from civil society and the justice sector:
- Prof Kingsley Abbott, Director, Institute of Commonwealth Studies (Chair);
- Dr Elizabeth Macharia, Head of Rule of Law Section, Commonwealth Secretariat;
- Justice Aruna Devi Narain, Supreme Court Justice of Mauritius and ICJ Commissioner;
- Dr Cherisse Francis, Senior Law Lecturer, St Mary’s University and incoming ICwS Associate Fellow;
- Jeshua Bardoo, Director of the East Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality (ECADE); and
- Daron Tan, Legal Adviser, ICJ and ICwS Associate Fellow.

This Practitioners’ Guide addresses the global, growing trend towards the wrongful criminalisation of conduct associated with poverty, homelessness and status by presenting a human rights-based approach to criminal law, based on general principles of criminal law and international human rights law and standards. This approach can be used to address the detrimental impact of the criminalisation of this conduct on health, equality and other human rights and to further its decriminalisation.
The Guide, the first of its kind, aims to serve as a practical tool and comparative law casebook to justice sector actors and others – such as legislatures, government officials, policy-makers, national human rights institutions, oversight bodies, victims’ groups, human rights advocates, civil society organizations and academics – offering a clear, accessible and operational legal framework and practical legal guidance on a human rights-based approach to criminal law. It aims to assist justice sector actors and others in pursuing legal advocacy and reform efforts for the review and repeal of discriminatory laws that are antithetical to human rights and the rule of law.
Drawn extensively from international, regional and domestic laws in relation to the criminalisation of conduct associated with poverty, homelessness and status, the Guide sets out:
- A human rights-based approach to criminal law, including the general principles of criminal law and international human rights law and standards, outlined in “The 8 March Principles for a Human Rights-Based Approach to Criminal Law Proscribing Conduct Associated with Sex, Reproduction, Drug Use, HIV, Homelessness and Poverty”, published by the ICJ in 2023;
- How to apply a human rights-based approach to criminal law by providing concrete examples to demonstrate how it may be applied in practice to the criminalisation of conduct associated with poverty, homelessness and status;
- The criminalisation of conduct associated with poverty and status at the domestic level through examples from various jurisdictions to demonstrate the application of a human rights-based approach to criminal law, including by showing how, for example, “vagrancy laws” in specific countries are generally incompatible with a human rights-based approach to criminal law; and
- A compilation of the growing body of domestic legal developments and jurisprudence around the world, as advocates seek to challenge the lawfulness of laws penalizing conduct associated with poverty, homelessness and status.

Background
At the last CHOGM at Rwanda in 2022, Heads of Government pledged to “fully implement laws that promote and protect inclusion, to eliminate discriminatory laws, policies and practices, and to promote appropriate legislation, policies and action.”
In response, the detailed Practitioners’ Guide on a human rights-based approach to criminal law, including to the decriminalisation of poverty and status, will serve as a reference and guide to governments, justice sector actors and others including members of civil society.
The Guide was produced following consultations with civil society and justice sectors across Asia, the Caribbean and Africa following a presentation at the Commonwealth Law Ministers Meeting in Zanzibar.
The Guide forms part of the work of the Global Campaign to Decriminalise Poverty and Status, which is a coalition of organizations from across the world that advocate for the repeal of laws, reform of policies and change in practices, that target people based on poverty, status or for their activism.
You can view and download the guide at the link below.
View the guide below
Practitioners' Guide on Human Rights-Based Approach to Criminal Law - Oct 2024 | 2.84 MB |