Emerging Trends and Best Practices in Comparative Clemency

A pardon in our days is not a private act of grace from an individual happening to possess power. It is a part of the Constitutional scheme. When granted, it is the determination of the ultimate authority that the public welfare will be better served by inflicting less than what the judgment fixed. The right to seek clemency in death penalty cases is an emerging norm of international human rights law, and potentially even represents a ‘norm cascade’, defined as a widespread norm that has hit a tipping point so as to become self-evident. International and supranational courts are nonetheless expanding the scope of the treaty-based right to apply for clemency in a death penalty case. The increasing constitutionalisation of clemency that we see in the Caribbean is a by-product of the persistent constitutional challenges against the death penalty in Caribbean courts and at the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London.