Stevie Martin (University of Cambridge) has published a book titled Assisted Suicide and the European Convention on Human Rights (Routledge). On 4 November, the book won the Yorke Prize - an annual award of the Faculty of
Law at the University of Cambridge for a publication of exceptional quality,
which makes a substantial contribution to a field of legal knowledge.
Here is the abstract of the book:
"Locating assisted suicide within the broader medical end-of-life
context and drawing on the empirical data available from the increasing
number of permissive jurisdictions, this book provides a novel
examination of the human rights implications of the prohibition on
assisted suicide in England and Wales and beyond. Assisted suicide is a
contentious topic and one which has been the subject of judicial and
academic debate internationally. The central objective of the book is to
approach the question of the ban’s compatibility with the European
Convention on Human Rights afresh; freed from the constraints of the
existing case law and its erroneous approach to the legal issues and
selective reliance on empirical data. The book also examines the
compatibility of the ban on assisted suicide with rights which have
either been erroneously disregarded or not considered by either the
domestic courts or the European Court of Human Rights. Having regard to
human rights jurisprudence more broadly, including in the context of
abortion, the research and analysis undertaken here demonstrates that
the ban on assisted suicide violates the rights of a significant number
of individuals to life, to freedom from torture or inhuman or degrading
treatment and to private life. Such analysis does not depend on a
strained or contrived approach to the rights at issue. Rather, the
conclusions flow naturally from a coherent, logical application of the
established principles governing those rights.
While the focus of the book is the Suicide Act 1961, the conclusions
reached have implications beyond England and Wales, including for the
other devolved jurisdictions and international jurisdictions. Beyond
courts and legislators, it will be a valuable resource for students of
human rights and medical law, as well as medical and legal practitioners
and academics working in human rights and end-of-life care."
