The book describes changes in the norms and institutions that deal with some of the most cruel treatment of prisoners, namely, torture, enforced disappearance, summary and arbitrary execution, the death penalty, corporal punishment, and wantonly cruel conditions of deprivation of freedom. Important United Nations instruments that have come into existence since the last edition include the Second Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (on abolition of the death penalty); the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons Under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment; and the Declaration Against Forced Disappearance. At the regional level, the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture has created a committee with the right to inspect places of detention in 39 Western and Eastern European countries. Relevant landmark cases of the European Court of Human Rights are profiled. These include cases that involved threatened extradition on a capitally punishable offense and a series of decisions against Turkey that pertained to torture, extra-legal execution, and enforced disappearance. A case involving the same practices in Honduras is also covered. Further, the book discusses the two ad hoc international criminal tribunals that have been established to consider prisoner-related actions in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The book also notes that some of the policy proposals of the last edition have now been realized, others remain applicable, and new ones have commended themselves. A table of court cases, appended documents discussed in the body of the book, and a subject index