In support of the rise of an international legal order that also affects criminal and prison law and politics is the work of certain authors who have demonstrated that even the United Nations legal framework and its structures have had an impact on penal policies and conflict law (Schwartz in Law not war: legal Evolution from the ancient empires to the emerging world society. Xlibris Corp, Bloomington). This international legal framework was reinforced, after the two World Wars by the creation of international human rights organisations, which became particularly influential by recognising human rights for citizens. While penal and prison policies have always been an exclusive and traditional competence and a monopoly exerted by national states, these policies have been progressively scrutinised, controlled, and then influenced and substantially oriented by the Council of Europe and the European Union (EU). This influence is such that the analysis of penal and prison policies needs therefore to integrate the study of this European level at least. The European regulation of penal and prison policies has been made through the human rights’ lens with a view to putting an end to gross prisoners’ rights violations committed by national states (van Zyl Smit, Dirk and Snacken, Sonja 2009). In this way, the book questions whether European case law has contributed over time to the shaping of prison policies and the creation of a monitoring and censure system based on human rights, which has forced national prison administrations to develop political, legal and organisational responses. In other words, it will ask if there is any evidence that national Ministers of Justice and prison administrations are obliged to comply with the European human rights law.