“Moving away from the Death Penalty – Lessons from national experiences”, 3 July 2012, New York
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/
Distinguished delegates,
Representatives of civil society,
Colleagues, and friends,
I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of you, and thank you for participating in this event organized by my Office on “Moving away from the death penalty – Lessons from national experiences.”
The global trend and position on the death penalty have evolved over the years. An increasingly large number of Member States from all regions have acknowledged that the death penalty undermines human dignity, and that its abolition, or at least a moratorium on its use, contributes to the enhancement and progressive development of human rights.
There is no right more sacred than the right to life. Since the beginning of my mandate, I have engaged in a dialogue with many States on this issue. During my recent country missions, I had encouraging discussions with senior officials about abolishing the death penalty or imposing at least a moratorium on it. In addition, my Office works at the national level to stimulate the debate, including through seminars which provide a forum for a core group of scholars and practitioners that come forward with convincing arguments in favor of the abolition of the death penalty.
With regard to retentionist States, international law requires as a minimum full compliance with the clear restrictions prescribed in particular in article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). According to this provision, its application shall be limited to the “most serious crimes.” It should be recalled that this term has been interpreted to mean that the death penalty should only be applied to the crime of murder. Therefore, in those States that have not yet abolished the death penalty, the use of capital punishment for drug offences or for offences carried out in connection with transnational organized crime is prohibited if the offences in question do not involve a taking of life. Furthermore, the death penalty cannot be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age and shall not be carried out on pregnant women.
States that have maintained the death penalty must ensure scrupulous respect of due process guarantees. The imposition of a death sentence upon conclusion of a trial in which the provisions of article 14 of the ICCPR have not been respected constitutes a violation of the right to life. Those accused of capital offences must be effectively assisted by a lawyer at all stages of the proceedings. Furthermore, executions should not take place when an appeal or other recourse is pending, and there must be the possibility for the individual concerned to seek pardon or commutation of the sentence.
Non-compliance with the principle of non-discrimination is also a major concern when considering the application of the death penalty. A death sentence is often imposed on less privileged individuals who do not have sufficient access to effective legal representation. Membership of a minority has often been identified as a significant factor in the decision that led to the sentence of death and execution. In addition, due regard is often lacking for the UN Safeguards Guaranteeing Protection of those Facing the Death Penalty, approved by ECOSOC in 1984, which prohibit the carrying out of the death penalty on persons “who have become insane.”
Methods of execution should meet the standards of “least possible physical and mental suffering.” Otherwise, the execution will constitute a violation of freedom from torture, inhuman or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It is difficult to think of a humane method of executions that can meet these criteria. Also troubling are the length and conditions imposed on individuals on death row.
Judges often complain that executive stipulations of mandatory sentences of death for specific crimes, is an interference on judicial discretion to determine the appropriate sentence. The sentence of death is so grave that it should not be mandatory. Nor can it be carried out in secret, which would make it amount to inhuman treatment of the executed person’s family.
A key obligation to bear in mind for any State that has itself abolished the death penalty is not to expel, extradite or otherwise remove from its jurisdiction individuals who face a real risk of a death sentence and execution in the country to which they are removed, without ensuring that the death penalty would not be carried out. Extradition or other transfer to such a country accordingly requires the procurement of effective guarantees or assurances to the effect that, at a minimum, the death penalty, if imposed, will not be carried out.
Finally, it should be recalled that the lack of data with regard to the number of executions or the number of individuals on death row is a serious impediment to any national debate that may lead to a move towards abolition of capital punishment in a given State. It will also be important for the effectiveness and transparency of such a debate to ensure that the public is provided with all sides of the arguments and with information and accurate statistics on criminality and the various effective ways to combat it, short of the death sentence.
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is interesting to note that in the early 1960s, when drafting the Covenant, its authors were already paving the way for the move in international law towards the abolition of the death penalty. The last paragraph of article 6 of the ICCPR provides that “nothing in this article shall be invoked to delay or prevent the abolition of capital punishment in any State party to the Covenant”. This move, which materialized in 1989 through the adoption of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on the Civil and Political Rights, to-date ratified by 74 States, is also reflected in a number of regional instruments supporting the abolition of the death penalty. I call upon States that have not yet done so to ratify the Second Optional Protocol, or as a strict minimum to place a formal moratorium on the use of the death penalty until they are ready to work towards its abolition.
I am grateful to panelists that have come from all parts of the world to share their experience with us today, in particular regarding the process of transition from capital punishment to abolition, or their experience, at times close or personal, of injustice related to the imposition of the death penalty.
I wish you a rich and fruitful discussion
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Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
UNHQ 03 July 2012
Remarks at High-Level Event on the Death Penalty
http://www.un.org/apps/news/
I thank the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights for organizing this important event.
And I welcome the participation of Mr. Federico Mayor, President of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty, and the Secretary-General of Amnesty International, Mr. Salil Shetty.
Civil society organizations have shown commendable leadership in working to end the death penalty.
In 2007, the UN General Assembly took a significant step toward the abolition of capital punishment – and the protection of human rights -- when it endorsed a call for
a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty.
Since that landmark vote, the trend against capital punishment has become ever stronger.
The sentiment towards abolition finds echoes in every region and across legal systems, traditions, customs and religious backgrounds.
There are now 74 Parties to the Optional Protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights aimed at ending capital punishment.
More than 150 States have either abolished the death penalty or do not practice it.
In 2011, only 20 Member States conducted executions.
Since the 2007 General Assembly resolution, Argentina, Burundi, Gabon, Latvia, Togo and Uzbekistan have abolished the death penalty.
In the United States, Illinois and Connecticut became the 16th and 17th states to reject death as a punishment.
I welcome this trend and encourage Member States who practice the death penalty or retain it in law to follow suit.
The right to life is the most fundamental of all human rights. It lies at the heart of international human rights law.
The taking of life is too absolute, too irreversible, for one human being to inflict it on another, even when backed by legal process.
Where the death penalty persists, conditions for those awaiting execution are often horrifying, leading to aggravated suffering.
Information concerning the application of the death penalty, including secret trials and executions, is often cloaked in secrecy.
And it is beyond dispute that innocent people are still put to death.
The United Nations system has long advocated abolition of the death penalty or -- at a minimum and in the interim -- moratoriums and restrictions on its use to only “the most serious crimes”.
Yet the death penalty is still used for a wide range of crimes that do not meet that threshold.
My forthcoming report on the death penalty expresses particular concern that 32 States retain the death penalty for drug-related offences.
I am also very concerned that some countries still allow juvenile offenders under the age of 18 at the time of the alleged offence to be sentenced to death and executed.
My Guidance Note of 2008 on the UN Approach to Rule of Law Assistance states that “the UN will neither establish nor directly participate in any tribunal that allows for capital punishment.”
International and hybrid criminal tribunals for Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Rwanda and Sierra Leone do not provide for capital punishment.
Nor does the International Criminal Court.
The call by the General Assembly for a global moratorium is a crucial stepping stone in the natural progression towards a full worldwide abolition of the death penalty.
Let us now do our utmost to put a final end to this practice.
I wish you a productive discussion.
Thank you.
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03 July 2012 Calls for end to death penalty
www.ohchr.org/EN/newyork/
In 1984, Kirk Bloodsworth, 23 years old and newly married, lived in Maryland in the United States.
“I had never been arrested a day in my life. This all changed on August 9th, when police knocked on my door at 3 o’clock in the morning and arrested me for the brutal rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl, Dawn Hamilton,” he says. “In a matter of days, I became the most hated man in Maryland.”
Despite the fact that he did not fit witnesses’ descriptions, he was convicted and sentenced to die in Maryland’s gas chamber after an anonymous caller suggested his name to the police.
Bloodsworth spent nearly nine years in prison, two of them on death row, before he was exonerated by DNA evidence, becoming the first person in the United States to escape execution through DNA testing.
“I am not here because the system worked. I am here because a series of miracles led to my exoneration,” he says. “If a country cannot ensure that they won’t kill an innocent citizen, they shouldn’t kill at all.”
Bloodsworth, now an activist against the death penalty, narrated his story at meeting on moving away from the death penalty, organised by the UN Human Rights Office
on 3 July 2012 at the United Nations in New York.
“The taking of life is too absolute, too irreversible, for one human being to inflict on another, even when backed by legal process,” Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, told the meeting.
Many speakers underlined the fact that even the most scrupulous of legal processes cannot prevent someone being wrongfully condemned to death.
“Can you trust the state to get it right? When we look at wrongful convictions in the United States, not all were due to involuntary errors,” said Barry Scheck, a lawyer who has helped to clear a number of suspects facing the death penalty in the United States and co-director of The Innocence Project.
“Improvements in the reduction of wrongful convictions can be achieved by various means including science – DNA testing, but also by video taping interrogations, which some countries, including China, are undertaking,” he added.
A number of speakers cited the discriminatory application of the death penalty as a major concern.
“A death sentence is often imposed on less privileged individuals who do not have sufficient access to effective legal representation. Membership of a minority has often been identified as a significant factor in the decision that led to the sentence of death and execution,” said Navi Pillay, the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
“It is those who don’t have the ‘capital’ who get capital punishment,” Kirk Bloodsworth concurred.
Decisions on which condemned prisoners to pardon or execute can also be biased.
“If executions took place, they were politically motivated and critiqued both nationally and internationally,” said Valentin Bagorikunda, Burundi’s Prosecutor-General, describing the situation before his country formally abolished the death penalty in 2009.
Underlining the point that the death penalty does not deter crime, he observed that since its abolition, Burundi had not seen any noticeable increase in the number of serious crimes.
In 2007, the General Assembly called for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty. Since then, the death penalty has been abolished by a number of countries, including Argentina, Burundi, Gabon, Latvia, Togo and Uzbekistan. More than 150 States have either abolished the death penalty or do not practice it.
“The call by the General Assembly for a global moratorium is a crucial stepping stone in the natural progression towards a full worldwide abolition of the death penalty,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The General Assembly will take up the matter again later this year.
The panel discussion was also addressed by Ivan Simonovic, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights; Christof Heyns, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Federico Mayor, President of the International Commission against the Death Penalty; Douglas Mendes, Justice of the Belize Court of Appeal and President of the Caribbean Centre for Human Rights; Cousin Zilala, Executive Director of Amnesty International in Zimbabwe; Blanca Aída Stalling Dávila, Director-General of El Instituto de la Defensa Pública Penal of Guatemala; and Maiko Tagusari, Secretary-General of the Center for Prisoners' Rights in Japan.
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