Fifteen criminal convicts sentenced to the death penalty challenged their sentences as in violation of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, which protects the right to life. They claimed that the executive orders rejecting their mercy petitions were passed without considering supervening events, including delay, insanity, solitary confinement, and procedural lapses. Two convicts alleged that the …Read more

The applicants, two prisoners with HIV and an interested non-governmental organization, complain that the policy of denying Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (“HAART”) to non-citizen inmates is a violation of the rights of such non-citizen prisoners under the Constitution of Botswana. HAART is a drug treatment that helps control HIV mutation and reduces the likelihood of …Read more

Nikolai Valetov, a Russian national, was arrested and charged in June 2001 with murder by Kyrgyzstan authorities while living in Kyrgyzstan. In addition to maintaining that he was framed for this crime by the police, Valetov further claimed that he was tortured by the police so severely while in pre-trial detention that he was permanently …Read more

In this case applicants argued that the no-smoking policy of the Waitemata District Health Board (WDHB)and the consequent prohibition of smoking in hospitals and surrounding grounds violated their right not to be subjected to torture or cruel treatment, the right to be treated with humanity, the right to respect private life, and the right to …Read more

The plaintiffs brought a case before the British Columbia Supreme Court following the 2006-2007 decision by the Ministry of Public Safety to cancel the Mother Baby Program at the Alouette Correctional Centre for Women, a women’s prison. This program had allowed incarcerated mothers and their babies to live at the institution together, subject to the …Read more

On 28 October 1997, JC (a military officer) was arrested by Zambian police for an attempted coup d’état. He was severely tortured and charged with treason. While being tortured, he was forced to sign false confessions and to implicate other military officials. Because of the torture, he was hospitalized at various times. On 31 October …Read more

This case concerned the Kichwa nation of the Ecuadorian Amazon, which encompassed two Peoples who shared the same linguistic and cultural tradition. The State of Ecuador had granted a private oil company a permit to carry out oil exploration and exploitation of activities in the ancestral territory of the Kichwa nation. The State did not …Read more

In 1991, the appellant, a Nigerian national, was arrested at the Hong Kong airport for drug trafficking, and subsequently sentenced to 24 years imprisonment. During this time, he applied several times to the Hong Kong and UK governments to be allowed to serve his sentence in Nigeria.  However, in 1998 he desisted after becoming aware …Read more

This case involved an appeal from a decision made by a three-judge court that was convened by the Federal District Court to decide the appropriate remedy for violations of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The violations were the subject of two related Federal District Court cases in California: Coleman v. Brown (1990) …Read more

The Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development (“CEHURD”) alleged that Uganda passed laws that were (1) degrading to mentally challenged individuals and (2) contrary to the Ugandan Constitution (“Constitution”). The factual issue at hand involved the claim that people with mental disabilities were being detained for long and indefinite periods of time without due …Read more