Mitchell Hamline Professor John Sonsteng will discuss the United States’ efforts to recognize the rights of crime victims at the International Istanbul Law Congress on Wednesday, Oct 19.
Sonsteng is one of three Americans invited to speak at the three-day conference in Istanbul. The gathering is sponsored by the Turkish Ministry of Justice.
“It is an incredible honor to be a part of the International Istanbul Law Congress,” Sonsteng said. “More than 100 speakers and hundreds of attendees from 16 countries will be on hand to address many important international issues, from treaties to trade to victims’ rights.”
Sonsteng will present a paper he wrote with Mitchell Hamline second-year students Jeremy Krahn and N. Chethana Perera called Rights of Victims in the Criminal Context. The paper looks at the beginnings of the victims’ rights movement in the 1970s and explores some of the efforts to establish the rights of victims in the criminal justice system.
In their research, Krahn, Perera, and Sonsteng shine a light on the extensive rights afforded to crime victims in Minnesota, such as the right to participate in the prosecution of their offender and the right to restitution.