Workshop: Human rights and prison labour (within Europe)
University of Amsterdam
Friday 12 Sept. 2025
How should we theorize, morally and legally, the human rights of prisoners? This interdisciplinary workshop will bring together legal philosophers, criminologists, and human rights scholars to critically reflect on detainees’ human rights, focusing especially on European legal and carceral contexts.
What would it mean, in theory and practice, to punish in accordance with prisoners’ human rights and human dignity? Are life sentences, for instance, compatible with prohibitions on inhuman and degrading punishment? How does the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) conceptualize and justify restrictions on human rights of prisoners? Are curtailments on human rights an inherent part of the practice of imprisonment? And how should European human rights bodies monitor and frame prison policies?
The workshop will give special attention to the law and morality of prison labour. Many European countries, including the Netherlands until July 2021, legally require prisoners to perform the work assigned to them, for hourly earnings far below the minimum wage. Under which conditions, if any, is mandatory work in prison legally and morally permissible? May prisoners be required to work for private employers? What is the difference, morally and legally, between compulsory prison work and internationally outlawed forms of forced labour?
Confirmed speakers include:
- Virginia Mantouvalou (UCL)
- Gaëtan Cliquennois (Nantes)
- Dr Alain Zysset (Glasgow)
- Dr Hadassa Noorda (Amsterdam)
- Dr Andrei Poama (Leiden)
- Mario Guido (UCL)
Attendance of the workshop is free and open to all. To register, please e-mail j.c.a.olsthoorn[a]uva.nl.
The workshop is made possible by a research grant from the NWO
(# 406.XS.24.01.055).
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