From 17-19 June, Dr. Ian Marder participated in an Expert Group Meeting in Bangkok, with around 30 other persons from universities, governments, criminal justice agencies and NGOs around the world. Organised by the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) and sponsored by the Thai Government and the Thailand Institute of Justice, the purpose of the meeting was to review an updated draft of the UN’s Handbook on Restorative Justice Programmes.
The purpose of the Handbook, first published in 2006, is to act as a resource for governments and criminal justice agencies which seek to develop the use of restorative justice in their jurisdiction. At the 27th Session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (at which Dr. Marder also spoke), the United Nations Economic and Social Council gave the UNODC a fresh mandate (see p.27 onwards) to update the Handbook and its other materials on restorative justice, reflecting developments in the field in the past 15 years.
Over three days, the participants went through the draft of the updated Handbook section by section, contributing comments and asking questions about its structure and contents. Dr. Marder was invited by the UNODC to chair the workshop on Chapter 4, Restorative Justice Programmes at Various Stages of the Criminal Justice Process. The discussions will inform the final draft of the Handbook, which will soon be published by the UNODC.
The UNODC is one of several international governmental organisations recently to develop its materials and approach to restorative justice. In 2018, the Organisation of American States passed a new resolution promoting the use of restorative justice in its member States’ criminal justice systems. Likewise, the European Commission recently published an independent report on the development of victims’ rights which argued that the European Union should begin actively to promote the use of restorative justice as a diversion from court. Finally, in 2017/18, Dr. Marder worked as Scientific Expert to the Council of Europe, for whom he drafted a new Recommendation concerning restorative justice in criminal matters, adopted in October 2018.