The Right to Life: Human Rights Approach in Criminal Law

Stevanović, Aleksandar (2024) The Right to Life: Human Rights Approach in Criminal Law. In: The right to life and body integrity. Institute of Criminological and Sociological Research ; Bar Association of Vojvodina, Belgrade ; Novi Sad, pp. 243-265. ISBN 978-86-80756-70-7; 978-86-905844-1-3

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Abstract

In this paper, the author considers the right to life within the relation-ship between criminal law and human rights paradigm, especially the role and importance of human rights doctrine in criminal law. The penetration of human rights into criminal law contributed to the strengthening of the criminal law protection of the right to life, both directly and indirectly. In the first case, certain norms and criminal law institutes that primarily pro-tect the right to life have been redacted in terms of providing more com-prehensive protection. Hence, when it comes to the protection of the life within criminal justice system it should be stated that criminal law becomes first instead of last resort. Mirroring the fact that life is a kind of “good” that is necessary condition for the enjoyment of all the other goods and rights, many criminal law norms that primarily protect other rights also need to be viewed in that sense. In general, there is a tendency to protect right to life not just in pure physical (bodily) sense but with the certain quality. However, based on the fact that human rights have both a defensive and an offensive role within criminal law it could be easily stated that the making criminal law norms and creating criminal justice system is in a certain way the art of balancing between an effective protection of the fun-damental values which are endangered by criminal acts and protection of the fundamental values which can be endangered while that goal is being achieved. In order to confirm the hypothesis regarding the influence of the hu-man rights on criminal law when it comes to the protection of the right to life, the paper will provide the relevant and prominent jurisprudence as well as the analysis of the certain changes regarding the criminal law in-stitutes on a comparative level.

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