Around the world, people accused of crimes are being pressured into giving up their right to a trial. We are working with prosecutors and policymakers to make sure there are safeguards in place to protect people from being coerced into accepting a plea bargain. We also campaign for wider system reform to prevent States from relying on plea bargaining as a solution to other failings in their criminal legal systems.

All over the world, basic rights are being violated every day in police stations, court rooms and prisons. This is causing miscarriages of justice, undermining public faith in criminal justice systems and getting in the way of cross-border cooperation.

The right to information in criminal proceedings is supposed to ensure that every arrested person knows why they have been arrested and what evidence has been collected against them. Is it happening though? 

In our increasingly globalised world, there is a growing need for effective extradition laws to help fight cross border crime. The fundamental human right to a fair trial must, however, be at the heart of cross border justice.

Right now, over three million people around the world are being held in prison while they wait for a trial. Many have been detained for months, or even years, even though they have not been convicted of a crime.  Fair Trials campaigns for States to use pre-trial detention only as a last resort and for people to be detained for as short a time as possible before a trial. 

INTERPOL plays a vital role in fighting crime, but we know that its systems are being abused by countries around the world in order to persecute refugees, journalists and peaceful political demonstrators. Photo: interpol.int