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The Juvenile Death Penalty And International Law, Curtis A. Bradley

Duke Law Journal

The United States is almost alone among nations in permitting the execution of juvenile offenders. Citing this fact, along with a variety of legal and historical materials, litigants and scholars are increasingly claiming that the United States' use of the juvenile death penalty violates international law. This Article examines the validity of this claim, from the perspective of both the international legal system and the U. S. legal system. Based on a detailed examination of the United States' interaction with treaty regimes and international institutions since the late 1940s, the Article concludes that the international law arguments against the juvenile …