The Bangkok Rules – (Unobvious?) Standard Determining the Status of Women in Prison

Abstract

Context-specific analyses devoted to the special value that dignity and the principle of gender equality must be recognised cannot ignore findings relating to the category of people with special needs, which regards women in detention. The indicated scientific intuition not only laid the foundation for the considerations devoted to this social group, but above all directed the way of thinking about their rights towards the Resolution 65/229 adopted by the General Assembly on 21 December 2010, entitled “United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders” – the so-called “United Nations Rules”. If, in consideration of the fact that 2025 marks the 15th anniversary of their adoption, it is justified to undertake research into the issues mentioned in the title, and the hypothesis that the Bangkok Rules are a tool through which one of the categories of human rights, namely the rights of women in detention, is materialised, takes on additional significance.

The main research objective of this study is to determine whether the status of the Bangkok Rules makes them a standard that shapes the status of women in prison isolation conditions. This study is factual in nature, determined historically by the process of the analysed Rules’ impact not only on the soft law, but also – and perhaps primarily – on the international human rights law. The study will apply an analytical and formal-dogmatic method.