Most Interesting 2020: Pinto, Historical Trends of Human Rights Gone Criminal

The ninth in our series "Most Interesting 2020":

Mattia Pinto, Historical Trends of Human Rights Gone Criminal (Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 729-761, 2020)

Perpetrators of human rights violations must be held criminally responsible for their conduct. How many times do we read this sentence as international lawyers? Probably too many that we do not even think of questioning it. But maybe we should. For anyone who wants to embark on this challenge, “Historical Trends of Human Rights Gone Criminal” by Mattia Pinto becomes a must-read starting point.

The article explores how, since 1970s, human rights have been used as drivers of penalty. Through a careful analysis of the interactions between the international, regional and domestic levels in this context, Pinto guides the reader through an extremely fascinating and complex historical, legal and sociological path. In doing so, he invites to reflect on the current normalisation of criminal law as one of the main tools for the protection of human rights. This paper will surely be one of those that cannot but be taken into account in dealing with the relationship between penalty and human rights.

Giulia Bosi
Ph.D. Candidate in Human Rights and Global Politics
Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies