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Conferences and Lectures

Past lectures and conferences

• Catherine Appleton and Dirk van Zyl Smit on 'Asian Life Imprisonment in Worldwide Perspective' at the Life Imprisonment in Asia: Law and Practice Conference co-hosted by the Asian Law Centre of the Melbourne Law School, the School of Law of Vietnam National University, and the School of Law of the University of Nottingham, online 5-6 October 2021.
• Catherine Appleton and Dirk van Zyl Smit on 'Life imprisonment: the use of it internationally and what is to be done' at the Fourteenth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, Kyoto, Japan, March 2021.
• Dirk van Zyl Smit, on 'Human Punishment: Life Imprisonment and the Right to Hope', organised online by The Criminal Law Group of the European Court of Human Rights, in cooperation with ‘Beyond Detention’ Interest Group, Liverpool John Moores University & Bologna University, March 2021.
• Dirk van Zyl Smit and Catherine Appleton on 'Challenges of Life Imprisonment under international human rights standards: Can it be an alternative to Capital Punishment?' at the Center for Prisoners' Rights, Tokyo, Japan, December 2020.

• Dirk van Zyl Smit, Annual 'Roger Hood' Lecture: The People Strike Back? Life imprisonment and other ultimate penalties in a constitutional democracy, University of Oxford, June 2020.

• Catherine Appleton on ‘Life Imprisonment: A Global Human Rights Crisis’ at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, January 2020.
• Catherine Appleton on ‘Life Imprisonment: Human rights violations in the sentencing and treatment of life-sentenced prisoners’, invited speaker, United Nations Human Rights Council, Geneva, September 2019.
• Catherine Appleton on  ‘Life Imprisonment: The Best Alternative?’, at the 7^th World Congress against the Death Penalty, Brussels, February 2019.
• Dirk van Zyl Smit and Catherine Appleton on ‘Life Imprisonment: A Global Human Rights Analysis’, The Houses of Parliament, UK, December 2018.
• Catherine Appleton on ‘Life-sentenced prisoners as vulnerable prisoners’, United Nations Committee Against Torture, United Nations Office at Geneva, August 2018 (closed session).
• Dirk van Zyl Smit and Catherine Appleton on ‘Life Imprisonment: A Global Human Rights Analysis’ at the United Nations Crime Commission, Vienna, May 2018.
• Dirk van Zyl Smit, ‘Life Imprisonment and Citizenship’ at the Annual Drapkin Conference on Imprisonment and Citizenship, The Hebrew University. Mt. Scopus Campus Jerusalem, April 2018.
• Catherine Appleton, ‘Life Imprisonment Worldwide’ at the Comparative Penology and Nordic Exceptionalism Conference, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, February 2018.
• Catherine Appleton, ‘A Global look at Life Imprisonment’, Correctional Service Worldwide conference for the International Unit of the Norwegian Directorate of Correctional Services, Lillestrøm, Norway, October 2017.
• Catherine Appleton, ‘Life Imprisonment: A Global Study’, COST Action European Cooperation in Science and Technology conference, Warsaw, Poland, October 2017.
• Dirk van Zyl Smit, ‘Life imprisonment in Europe and worldwide‘ to the "Tagung zur lebenslange Freiheitsstrafe der Arbeitskreis: Strafjustiz in Niedersachsen" at the Evangelischen Akademie Loccum, Germany, June 2017.
• Catherine Appleton, ‘Life imprisonment: Key findings from an international research study’, International Conference on Life Imprisonment and Release on Parole, Chișinău, Moldova, May 2017.
• Catherine Appleton, ‘Life Imprisonment: International Perspectives’, University of Oslo, Norway, April 2017.
• Dirk van Zyl Smit, Hoffinger Criminal Justice Forum lecture ‘Testing the Limits of judicial Activism: The Life Imprisonment Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and Its Global Impact’, New York University School of Law, March 2017.
• Dirk van Zyl Smit, ‘Life imprisonment and human rights driven reform’ Risk and Vulnerability in Prison Populations: a Global Crisis conference at Birkbeck in London, October 2016.
• Dirk van Zyl Smit, ‘Using human rights to reform life imprisonment in the United Kingdom’, Howard League Conference, Justice and Penal Reform: Re-shaping the penal landscape, Keble College, Oxford, March 2016.
• Dirk van Zyl Smit and Angelika Reichstein, ‘Comparative developments in life imprisonment of special relevance to the Balkan region’, Conference on ‘Imprisonment in the Balkans’ held under the auspices of ‘Balkan Criminology’, a Partner Group of the Max Planck Society in Sarajevo, September 2015.
• Catherine Appleton, ‘The Meaning of Life Imprisonment’, Themed session on ‘New Perspectives on Life Imprisonment’ at the Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology in Porto, Spain, September 2015.
• Dirk van Zyl Smit, ‘Imposing Life Imprisonment’ Themed session on ‘New Perspectives on Life Imprisonment’ at the Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology in Porto, Spain, September 2015.
• Dirk van Zyl Smit, ‘The Future of Life Imprisonment’, British Society of Criminology Midlands Regional Network Seminar Series, Nottingham, May 2015.
• Catherine Appleton and Dirk van Zyl Smit, ‘Life Imprisonment in England and Wales’, Workshop on ‘Life Imprisonment and Human Rights’, International Institute for Sociology of Law, Oñati, Spain, April 2015.
• Dirk van Zyl Smit, ‘Death in America: Life in Europe: Two approaches to ultimate penalties’ Annual Lecture of the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, University of Leeds, April 2015.