Melbourne Law School - Research Publications
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ItemDrug-related Crimes Under Vietnamese Criminal Law: Sentencing and Clemency in Law and Practice(Asian Law Centre, University of Melbourne, 2014)Although drug abuse has a long history, Vietnam has recently escalated its fight against drug-related crimes. This paper first discusses the elements of drug-related crimes under the Criminal Code of Vietnam 1999 (as amended in 2009) and calls for a series of reforms. It then analyses sentencing under the Vietnamese criminal law in general, with particular focus on drug-related crimes and the granting of clemency.
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ItemIslam, Democracy and the Future of the Death Penalty(Asian Law Centre, University of Melbourne, 2015)This paper explores Islamic attitudes to the death penalty and argues that all contemporary cultures – whatever their origin and whatever their religious context – face challenges in reconciling the death penalty with the right to life. The experiences of the United States (the world’s largest Christian society), India (the largest Hindu society), and Indonesia (the largest Muslim society) suggest, however, that religion is not always an obstacle to democracy or human rights reform, even if all these countries still execute. The paper raises the questions of whether Islam requires the death penalty for certain crimes; whether executions are a breach of human rights; and whether religion is an obstacle to human rights reform. The paper concludes that increasing acceptance of democracy and international human rights norms as a global civilisational aspiration is forcing reconsideration of the death penalty in many societies - including in Muslim majority states like Indonesia.