Why Punitive Policies and Laws Will Not Solve Violent Crime in Jamaica
“Police kill 7 in Braeton”. “Massacre in Tivoli”. “Police death squads uncovered” These headlines tell the story of state violence, sanctioned as a legitimate tool to fight the rise in...
An opportunity lost for the protection of freedom of expression and LGBTI rights in Jamaica
On 30 October 2020, the Jamaican Court of Appeal handed down its long awaited judgment in the case of Tomlinson v TVJ and CVM. Tomlinson, a gay Jamaican man, argued...
Jamaican Marijuana Reform, Rastas and Rights
In 1997, Dr. Dennis Forsythe, described in Forsythe v Director of Public Prosecutions and Attorney General (1997 34 J.L.R. 512) as a sociologist, holist, author, Rastafarian and attorney-at-law, petitioned the...
The Problem of Progressive Realization – Protecting the Rights of the Disabled in Jamaica
Jamaica boasts of being the first country in the world to both sign and ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, on March 30, 2007....
Fundamental Human Rights and the Community Law of CARICOM
In 1973, pursuant to the Treaty of Chaguaramas (ToC), the independent countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean and Montserrat (at the time a British Crown colony) established the Caribbean Community and...
HIV and Caribbean Law: Case for Tolerance
In the western hemisphere, the Anglophone Caribbean maintains some of the most regressive anti-gay laws in the world. The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago as well as Belize both have...