Prerequisites for the adoption of the Bangkok Rules

The Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners were adopted at the first United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders in 1955 and approved by the UN Economic and Social Council in 1957. They remain a key benchmark when assessing prison conditions.
Since 1955, the needs and nature of the prison population and the criminal justice systems of which it is a part have changed. Subsequent international guidelines regarding deprivation of liberty have been developed. Of these, two documents are most important: the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment, adopted in 1988, and the Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners, adopted in 1990. The Standard Minimum Rules for Non-Custodial Measures (Tokyo Rules), adopted in 1990, call for expanding the use of non-custodial measures and ensuring that prisons are used as a last resort. Additional measures have been developed to meet the needs and take into account the characteristics of children (the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989; the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice, the Beijing Rules; and the UN Guidelines for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency, the Riyadh Guidelines, adopted in 1990).
These rules and principles contain only a few provisions addressed specifically to the needs and characteristics of women and girls in the criminal justice system. In 1980, the 6th UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders unequivocally recognised that women, due to their small numbers, are often not given the same attention and respect for their needs as male offenders. It was noted that this is expressed in the limited access of women to necessary programmes and services and in placing them in institutions located far from their families and local communities. It was recognised that women usually bear the primary responsibility for childcare.
In 2000, in the Vienna Declaration on Crime and Justice, states committed to taking into account and addressing the issue of the different consequences of implemented programmes and policies for women and men, and to developing action-oriented recommendations based on addressing the special needs of women as prisoners and offenders.
At its 18th session in 2009, the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (the Commission) adopted Resolution 18/1, titled ‘Supplementary Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders’, proposed by the government of Thailand. It recognises that most of the world’s existing prisons are intended primarily for male prisoners and that the number of female prisoners has grown significantly in recent years. It also recognises that female prisoners are a vulnerable group with special needs and requests. In this resolution, the Commission requested the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to convene a meeting of an open-ended intergovernmental expert group in 2009 to develop, in accordance with the Tokyo Rules, special supplementary rules for the treatment of women in detention and women in relation to whom measures related or unrelated to detention are applied.
In February 2009, the Government of Thailand organised an informal meeting of experts from all regions of the world, where representatives of PRI and QUNO were among the experts from non-governmental organisations. The next meeting of the intergovernmental expert group took place in Thailand in November 2009, when experts from 25 member states, including representatives of PRI and QUNO again, relying on the results of the February meeting and introducing changes and additions, prepared a draft of the rules, including a separate commentary containing empirical justification.
At the 12th United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, which took place in Salvador (Brazil) in April 2010, the intergovernmental expert group reported on the results of the meeting in Bangkok. The UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice approved the draft Rules at its 19th session in May 2010, and the draft resolution (document A/C.3/65/L.5) was approved by the Economic and Social Council on 22 July 2010. In October 2010, the Third Committee (for social, humanitarian, and cultural issues) approved the text, recommending that the General Assembly adopt a resolution in support of the Bangkok Rules, and on 21 December 2010, the Rules were adopted without a vote (A/RES/65/229)