Spandau, Sugamo, and Landsberg – The Origins of Sentence Enforcement in International Criminal Law, and their Relevance for the International Criminal Justice System of Tomorrow

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Boris Burghardt; Professor Dr. Florian Knauer
• Subject Area: Criminology ; Principles of Law and Jurisprudence ; Criminal Law
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 449059940

The project “Spandau, Sugamo, and Landsberg – The Origins of Sentence Enforcement in International Criminal Law, and their Relevance for the International Criminal Justice System of Tomorrow” examines three historic examples of sentence enforcement for crimes under international law: the imprisonment of German and Japanese war criminals in the Spandau Military Prison, the Sugamo Prison in Tokyo, and War Criminals Prison No. 1 in Landsberg/Bavaria. These case studies will close gaps in our knowledge of the origins of international criminal justice. The project will also examine from a systematic perspective to what extent these historical examples offer lessons for an alternative sentence enforcement model in the future. In this regard, Spandau, Sugamo, and Landsberg represent a model of enforcement whereby special prisons follow distinct legal rules, possibly under international authority. This stands in contrast to the current approach in sentence enforcement for crimes under international law: a decentralised model where individual criminals are transferred to national prisons operating under general domestic sentence enforcement rules.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants