Call for papers on: Rights Protection for Crime Victims

Since the 1985 UN Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power, countries have legislated to recognise the special status of victims within criminal procedures and to set out the basic obligations of police, prosecutors, courts, and corrections to respond. Alongside legislated legal reforms, civil society groups have pressed for greater recognition of and protections for specific victimised populations to enable access to justice. At their introduction, rights instruments were faulted as soft law and lacking enforcement provisions. Rights for victims, it was said, were not ‘real’. However, while there have been advances in many areas, there have been no comprehensive compilation of scholarship on contemporary practice in the promotion, protection and enforcement of rights for crime victims.

The Special Issue of the International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice (IJCACJ) aims to fill this gap in the academic literature by bringing together research on these dispersed activities in one volume. It will comprise a comprehensive and comparative review of existing crime victims’ regimes, critical reflection on their efficacy, and suggestions for future reforms.

Contributors from different countries and different legal systems are invited to submit articles (6000 words) that are conceptual and/or empirical.