ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the narrative of progressive humanisation from the perspective of social rehabilitation of offenders. It describes how the only provision in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on the topic got diluted during the drafting process and was later interpreted by the Human Rights Committee in an unduly restrictive manner. The chapter also discusses the paradoxical role of the human rights as it seeks to simultaneously counter the punitive reach of the law in some areas and expand its application in others. It provides the idea of rehabilitation as a sentencing aim and shows how it could furnish additional grounds for challenging two of the most extreme manifestations of the coercive state power, namely the death penalty and whole-life sentences. The chapter concludes with certain unanswered questions with respect to classical penological justifications and explains how human rights discourse is wedded to retributive justice and the fetish of the abstract individual.
