Can States Throw Away the Key? Critiquing Human Rights Law Approaches to Whole Life Sentences

29 Pages Posted: 12 Jan 2026 University of Reading Department of Law, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester Date Written: October 22, 2025 In this article, we examine the jurisprudence on the compatibility of irreducible life sentences with human rights under three rights-protecting instruments: the European Convention on Human Rights, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. While the European Court of Human Rights and the Supreme Court of Canada take a similar approach, holding that irreducible life sentences are impermissible as "inhuman or degrading" or "cruel and unusual punishment", New Zealand 's High Court, by contrast, found that such a sentence was not "cruel, degrading, or disproportionately severe". We critique the European and Canadian case law, favouring the New Zealand approach, by reference to multiple aspects of the courts' reasoning in these cases: the significance of rehabilitation of the offender (as opposed to other possible penological grounds for imprisonment); the meaning of atonement; the effects on the offender; the place of the victim in the judicial reasoning; the interests o f the community; and issues with the concepts of human dignity and the living instrument in human rights law. Without making an affirmative case for irreducible life sentences, we argue that such a punishment is not inherently contrary to human rights. Keywords: Whole life sentences, Canada, European Convention on Human Rights, Article 3, New Zealand, Cruel and unusual punishment Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation Foxhill House Whiteknights Campus Reading, Berkshire RG6 6BA United Kingdom United Kingdom Comparative & Non-U.S. Constitutional Law eJournal Subscribe to this fee journal for more curated articles on this topic Corrections & Sentencing Law & Policy eJournal Subscribe to this fee journal for more curated articles on this topic English & Commonwealth Law eJournal Subscribe to this fee journal for more curated articles on this topic Canadian Law eJournal Subscribe to this fee journal for more curated articles on this topic