International sources of penal execution law for minors

United Nations documents

Abstract

The United Nations has developed live legislative activity in recent decades in order to impose standards in the enforcement of criminal sanctions against juveniles. The paper pointed to the provisions of those instruments whose provisions are applied in their entirety to the enforcement of criminal sanctions against this category of persons ('primary sources'), and those instruments that only partially touch on this issue ('secondary sources'). Secondary sources in paper are listed as follows: Convention on the Rights on the Child, Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice, Guidelines for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency, World Program of Action for Youth to the Year 2000 and Beyond and Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Nelson Mandela Rules); while the following documents were listed as primary sources: Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty and Standard Minimum Rules for Non-custodial Measures. By their adoption, the World Organization strongly influenced the development of what could be called the 'Penal Executive Law for Juveniles'. These documents, irrespective of the fact that they do not have the same commitment to the members of the World Organization, have done but still have a strong impact on the legislation of all countries in the part relating to the enforcement of criminal sanctions against this category of perpetrators of crimes. In this paper, we have pointed out the basic content of these international instruments, although some of their provisions are partially aligned. This is done not only in order to find the relevant legislation of the World Organization in one place (and this will be of benefit to those who will be familiar with this matter), but also because it will enable researchers to compare how much the provisions of the criminal executive rights in Serbia are in line with the United Nations standards and recommendations.