Professor Stephen Shute Appointed First British President of the International Penal and Penitentiary Foundation
By: Charlotte Shamoon
Last updated: Friday, 4 August 2023
Professor Stephen Shute
Stephen Shute has been appointed 11th President of the International Penal and Penitentiary Foundation (IPPF)/Foundation International Pénale et Pénitentiaire (FIPP). He will hold this position for at least five years.
The IPPF/FIPP is the oldest agency operating in the field. Although it was founded in 1951, its roots date back to the creation of the International Penitentiary Commission (IPC) in 1872 after an International Congress held in that year in London. The IPC’s successor body, the International Penal and Penitentiary Commission (IPPC), came into being following a name change in 1929. Both operated as inter-governmental agencies. With the establishment of the United Nations after the Second World War, the IPPC became the IPPF/FIPP.
Registered in Switzerland, the IPPF/FIPP is governed by sections of the Swiss Civil Code and by its own statutes. However, because of its connection to the United Nations – the United Nations General Assembly decided on a statute which is specific to the IPPF/FIPP – it is not so much an NGO as an association sui generis.
The Foundation’s vision is to create a safer and more just world through the development of penal and penitentiary standards, policies, and practices which are rooted in effectiveness and evidence and which pay proper respect to equality, social inclusion, fundamental rights, and fair procedure. Its mission is to deliver improvement through research, debate, the dissemination of scholarship and expertise, and a dialogue between scholars and practitioners.
The IPPF/FIPP celebrated its 150th Anniversary in Geneva in 2022. The original membership was drawn from a group of founding countries, of which the United Kingdom was one.
The IPPF/FIPP has had 10 previous Presidents: three from Belgium, two from the United States of America, one from France, one from Norway, one from Portugal, one from Hungary, and one from Ireland. Professor Shute is the first President of the IPPF/FIPP to come from the United Kingdom. He is also the first person from the United Kingdom to have served on the IPPF/FIPP’s five-member Council.
Former IPPF/FIPP Presidents include Professor Paul Cornil, the First President, and Professor Jean G.O. Dupréel, the Fourth President, who both were Secretary-Generals in the Belgian Ministry of Justice; Charles Germain, the Second President, who was Directeur de l’Administration Penitentiare in the French Ministry of Justice and Avocat Général à la Court de Cassation; Justice Helge Röstad, the Fifth President, who was a Justice of the Supreme Court in Norway for 17 years; Professor Dr Judge András Szabó, the Seventh President, who was a Judge of the Constitutional Court in Hungary for eight years; and Chief Justice Phillip Rapoza, the Ninth President, who was the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court for almost a decade.
The other five Presidents have all been distinguished academics: Professor Thorsten Sellin (USA), the Third President, who was one of the most acclaimed criminologists and penologists of the 20th Century; Professor Dr Jorge de Figueiredo Dias (Portugal), the Sixth president; Professor George Kellens (Belgium), the Eighth President; and Dr Mary Rogan (Ireland), the Tenth President.
The list of 17 Presidents of the IPPF/FIPP’s predecessor bodies, the IPC and the IPPC, also includes many of the great names of late 19th and 20th Century penology and criminology. Amongst them are Dr Enoch Cobb Wines, the first President of the IPC from 1872 to 1878, who was Secretary of the US National Prison Association; Sanford Bates, the last President of the IPPC from 1947 to 1951, who was Director of the US Federal Bureau of Prisons; Sir Evelyn John Ruggles-Brise, who was President of the IPC from 1910 to 1926; and Sir Alexander Henry Paterson MC, who was President of the IPPC from 1943 to 1946. Both Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise and Sir Alexander Paterson were highly revered Commissioners for Prisons for England and Wales.
Across its nearly 75-year history, the IPPF/FIPP has made a remarkable contribution to penal and penitentiary reform. Its tangible achievements include the ground-breaking work it did on the construction of “Minimum Rules for the Non-Custodial Treatment of Offenders”. These lay behind the so-called “Tokyo Rules” which were adopted by the United Nations at its Eighth Congress on Crime Prevention and the Treatment of Offenders held in Havana in 1990.
The development of “Minimum Rules on Non-Custodial Treatment of Offenders” was preceded by the pioneering work that the IPPF/FIPP’s forebearer, the IPPC, completed, between 1929 and 1933, on the construction of “Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Detainees”. These Rules were adopted by the League of Nations in 1934. They later formed the basis for an expanded set of “Minimum Rules” which was approved by the First United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and the Treatment of Offenders held in Geneva in 1955. The latest version of these Rules, now known as the “Nelson Mandela Rules”, was endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly on 17 December 2015.
The work the IPPF/FIPP did on these Rules has also served as the template for the creation of many other similar instruments, including the “Beijing Rules” – the “Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice” – which were adopted by the United Nation’s General Assembly on 10 December 1985.