IMPACT
By Theme
Training the next generation of capital defence advocates in the region
In 2018, CPJP commenced a partnership with Monash University’s Law Faculty and launched Eleos Justice. Eleos Justice is the region's leading academic hub for evidence-based research, policy and clinical casework devoted to restricting and abolishing the death penalty. The Eleos Anti-Death Penalty Clinic trains law students in capital defence casework, advocacy and policy across the Asia-Pacific region.
> Read more about our education initiatives
Reducing Australia’s complicity in the death penalty abroad
CPJP is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into the involvement of foreign law enforcement agencies in information sharing with Asian enforcement authorities. We believe that such cooperation has led to numerous arrests, convictions and death sentences throughout the Asia Pacific region. We seek to uncover information that demonstrates failings of so-called ‘abolitionist’ states, and risks whitewashing abuse, corruption, and state-sanctioned killing by ‘friendly’ retentionist states.
> Read more about our policy work
State-sanctioned Killing of Sexual Minorities
Eleos Justice is a collaboration between CPJP and the Monash Law Faculty and, in February 2021, we published ‘State-Sanctioned Killing of Sexual Minorities — Looking Beyond the Death Penalty’ — our first joint research project.
From the preface
“The purpose of this research was to uncover the true extent to which the death penalty and state-sanctioned killings are being perpetrated against sexual minorities, thereby, empowering further advocacy and more focused policy in this area.
Just as with many continuing rights abuses around the globe, there is an unscientific sentiment that the march of human progress has eliminated some of the most egregious and intrusive acts of states that interfere with the lives, dignity, diversity and relationships of some. Yet we know that despite the evolution of many domestic legal systems, and the international legal framework, sexual minorities continue to face the most extreme threat of all in some places, the threat to their lives.”
…The research will help open the conversation and create greater awareness concerning lawful excuses for homicides committed on the basis of an individual’s sexual orientation, and that legal protections for sexual minorities require strengthening. It is CPJP’s hope that we and our abolitionist partners, including the Australian Government, can devise strategies and policy to effect change in this area, by promoting that change in our relations with both abolitionist and retentionist states.”
— Capital Punishment Justice Project
Read ‘State-Sanctioned Killing of Sexual Minorities’
Above: Robin Hammond — ‘Where Love Is Illegal’ Witness Change Project, from the Eleos Report
“…sexual minorities continue to face the most extreme threat of all in some places, the threat to their lives.”
Killing in the Name of God
State-Sanctioned Violations of Religious Freedom
This Eleos Justice report examines the extent to which States commit, or are complicit in, killings that violate religious freedom. The report explores the relationship between the retention of the death penalty for religious offences and other forms of state-sanctioned killings motivated by alleged religious offending or by religious identity.
From the foreword
“This timely and significant report—Killing in the Name of God: State-Sanctioned Violations of Religious Freedom—comes as we continue to live through the human tragedy and widespread uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has disproportionately affected certain marginalised groups, and I have been deeply concerned by the rising number of reported acts of discrimination, hostility, and violence against religious and belief minorities.
…There has been a surge of religious intolerance worldwide, including revival of anti-blasphemy and anti-apostasy laws. These laws cannot be justified under the international human rights law framework precisely because this framework protects individuals, rather than religions or beliefs. Nonetheless, these laws restrict the freedom to express views which may be deemed offensive to certain religious or belief communities, generally invoking national security, public order, or morality.”
— Ahmed Shaheed, UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, October 2021
Read ‘Killing in the Name of God’
Photo credits: Muzafar Ali.
Above: Bodies of the victims of the twin suicide attacks in Quetta, Pakistan on 10 January 2013.
Below: Funeral procession for victims of the Quetta attacks.
A Deadly Distraction
Why the Death Penalty is not the Answer to Rape in South Asia
As of May 2022, the death penalty remains a lawful punishment for one or more rape offences in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. This joint report by ADPAN, Eleos Justice and the SAME Network provides an overview of capital rape laws in these jurisdictions, discusses the everyday ramifications of such laws, and explores existing and potential avenues by which advocates may campaign for reform.
The introduction of capital rape laws across South Asia appears to have been a superficial response by governments in an attempt to quell public outcry surrounding high profile rape cases. This report finds that, rather than attempting to control and prevent rape, governments have instead sought to create the illusion that they are prioritising the interests of victims, despite the relentless opposition of penological experts and practitioners to capital rape laws.
From the foreword
“This research is a precious milestone; it uses facts and logic to remind us that we have a choice: we can perpetuate violence and support a toxic, unequal system that too often constitutes a mockery of justice and generates more perpetrators and victims, or we can engage in creative and scientific initiatives to break an intergenerational cycle of violence, heal together, and increase our chances to end rape. In my view, this report is a promising contribution to the movement against the death penalty and rape.”
— Valerie Khan, May 2022
Silently Silenced: State-Sanctioned Killing of Women
This report examines states’ involvement in ‘feminicide’, understood as the gender-motivated killing of women and girls that States actively engage in, condone, excuse, or fail to prevent. We outline States’ direct involvement and complicity in the killings of women and girls and explain these deaths as a product of gendered forms of structural violence upheld and sustained by the State.
From the foreword
“Over 40 years ago, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women came into force, with the aim of bringing half of humanity into its scope, ensuring the equal rights of men and women to enjoy all economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights. Women’s right to vote and the right to hold public office, rights to non-discrimination in education, employment and economic and social activities, as well as the right to reproductive choice are some of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Convention. Today, instead of enjoying these rights, many women around the world continue to be deprived of the most fundamental right: the right to life. Gendered stereotypes, customs and biased norms that hinder women’s equality also operate to kill them.”
— Morris Tidball-Binz, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions