The Rule of Law and the Universality of Rights: International Law and the Death Penalty's Denial of Universal Human Rights

Join the Human Rights Center to celebrate Professor John Bessler's (U. Baltimore) new book from Cambridge University Press, “The Death Penalty's Denial of Fundamental Human Rights: International Law, State Practice, and the Emerging Abolitionist Norm.” This book details how capital punishment violates universal human rights-to life; to be free from torture and other forms of cruelty; to be treated in a non-arbitrary, non-discriminatory manner; and to dignity.

Professor John Bessler has taught at the University of Baltimore School of Law since 2009, becoming a tenured faculty member in 2014. He has also taught at the University of Minnesota Law School, the George Washington University Law School, the Georgetown University Law Center, Rutgers School of Law, and the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. He clerked for U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. “Jack” Mason of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, and practiced law full-time for many years in the area of civil litigation. In 2018, he was awarded the University System of Maryland Board of Regents’ Faculty Award for Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity.  In 2018, he was also a visiting scholar/research fellow at the Human Rights Center of the University of Minnesota Law School.

Professor Bessler will be joined by discussants Amy Bergquist and Professor Ryan Greenwood.