Senior Lecturer in Law at St Mary’s University, Twickenham (SMU), Cherisse Francis, was invited by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, the International Court of Jurists (ICJ) , and the Commonwealth Secretariat to Thailand earlier last month for a regional consultation for experts in Asia and the Caribbean.
The aim of the event was to discuss a human rights based approach to criminal law and the decriminalisation of poverty and status with the aim of contributing to a Guide for Legal Practitioners on the same topic. The guide is based on the ICJ's 8 March Principles.
Cherisse was one of the 30 experts at the event and presented on the Caribbean perspective in relation to the gaps between legislation and practice. She spoke about the need for reform and taking an approach to criminal law that criminalises what people have done and not who they are.
The guide includes regional and country specific contexts and will be useful for legal practitioners and jurists seeking to change the way that they apply the law, while also helping to enhance the capacity of civil society organisations engaged in human rights spaces.
These discussions feed into Cherisse's larger research interests on decriminalisation, intersections between race ethnicity and culture, as well as the criminal law.