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Abstract

The primary object of this study are international efforts aimed at improving the situation of offenders who serve their sentence abroad. This phenomenon is analysed from legal, social, humanitarian, and statistical points of view. In addition, the author analyses domestic efforts aimed at improving prison conditions and the treatment of foreigners. The book intends to fill a gap in the doctrine and literature of international criminal law by providing a comprehensive and comparative analysis of prisoner transfer schemes. Its crucial part is the discussion of the basic problems underlying prisoner transfer intruments. These include the scope of persons eligible for transfer, conditions for transfer such as the double criminality requirement, the nature and scope of offences underlying conviction, the minimum time remaining to be served, and minimum legal safeguards as well as the procedure for transfer and the systems of adaptation of a foreign sentence to domestic law.
In order to answer the question whether it can be held that the old and long lasting rule which barred the enforcement of foreign penal judgments and, accordingly, transfer of sentenced persons has changed, the author discusses prisoner transfer schemes in the context of the system of international cooperation in criminal matters. Other topics of the book are the implementation of international instruments into the domestic legal system and the practice of prisoner transfer.