Throughout the ages, many cultures in every part of the world have used capital punishment for grave offences, ranging from theft to murder. Today, only 78 countries and territories retain the right to use the death penalty. In 2003, according to Amnesty International, 28 of those States executed 1,146 prisoners and some 2,756 people were sentenced to death. Of all known executions in 2003, 84 per cent took place in four countries: at least 726 people in China, 108 in Iran, 65 in the United States and 64 in Viet Nam. However, Amnesty International believes the figure for China to be much higher.
The first attempt by the international community at abolishing the death penalty, or simply minimizing the use of it, was in 1948, with the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration defines the rights and freedoms of individuals in detail, whereas the United Nations Charter had loosely discussed human rights only in general terms. As defined by the UN Charter, the United Nations was created after the Second World War to prevent unnecessary death, while the Universal Declaration further clarifies that goal, stating in its article 3 that “everyone has the right to life”. Since the Declaration’s ratification in December 1948, 118 Member States have abolished the death penalty, either in law or in practice, and many States are encouraging others to abolish it as well.
A Declaration is a non-binding treaty, but a Convention or a Covenant is a legal instrument. Soon after the Universal Declaration on Human Rights was ratified, some feared that despite its moral force not many countries would sincerely follow the regulations defined by it. Thus, in 1966, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) was adopted, entering into force ten years later; it now has 152 ratifications. The Covenant strongly encourages all UN Member States to abolish the death penalty, but allows that the “sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes” (Article 6, Section 2). It also created a monitoring body, the Human Rights Committee, as a mechanism to monitor the implementation of the Covenant.
Some 15 years after the ICCPR entered into force, the General Assembly in 1989 adopted a Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant, aimed at the abolition of the death penalty. The Optional Protocol, which entered into force in 1991, was created because many States Parties believe that “abolition of the death penalty contributes to enhancement of human dignity and progressive development of human rights” (Preamble to Optional Protocol). It allows only for the use of the death penalty during wartime and within justifiable reason—“no reservation is admissible … except …in time of war” (Article 2, Section 1). It also requires States Parties to submit reports to the Human Rights Committee on “measures that they have adopted to give effect to the present Protocol” (Article 3).
Persons below the age of 18 who have committed a crime, known as child offenders, are exempt from capital punishment under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which entered into force within a year of its adoption in 1989. Its Article 37 states: “No child shall be subjected to …capital punishment … for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age.” The Convention, ratified by 192 countries, is “the most universally accepted human rights instrument in history”; however, two countries have yet to sign it—Somalia and the United States.
In addition to the Universal Declaration, the International Covenant, the Second Optional Protocol, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, there are over fifty resolutions adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, and the UN Commission on Human Rights, abolishing the death penalty; many more are in the drafting stage.
The European States are some of the strongest forces within the United Nations in the international effort to abolish the death penalty, and the European Parliament has declared that it “considers capital punishment an inhuman, medieval form of punishment and unworthy of modern societies”. Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, concerning the abolition of the death penalty, states that in all circumstances capital punishment is completely banned within the European Union. The European Convention, signed by 18 European States and ratified by another 24, entered into force in July 2003. It is “the first international treaty to ban the death penalty in all circumstances with no exceptions permitted” (Amnesty International, The Death Penalty Worldwide: Developments in 2003).
Despite international efforts to at least restrict the use of the death penalty, capital punishment is still being applied to child offenders, although it is clearly outlawed under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Since 1990, eight countries—China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United States and Yemen—have executed 36 child offenders. China, Pakistan, Yemen and Zimbabwe have recently raised the minimum age to 18 years for the application of the death penalty, and Iran is in the process of doing the same. However, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and the United States still have not outlawed the execution of child offenders. Since 1990, over half of such known executions of child offenders (19 of the 36) have taken place in the United States. On 19 July 2004, former Presidents Jimmy Carter of the United States and Mikhail Gorbachev of the Russian Federation, along with several other Nobel Peace Prize laureates, lobbied outside the United States Supreme Court in Washington D.C. in an effort to end the execution of child offenders.
Other efforts towards abolishing the death penalty are regulated by the UN Commission on Human Rights. It appointed a Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, whose mandate, among others, is to look into independent cases of capital punishment throughout the world and try to prevent new ones, encouraging “the desirability of the abolition of the death penalty” and ensuring that restrictions on its use are being upheld. Current Special Rapporteur Asma Jahangir strongly encourages international organizations and other pertinent actors to support initiatives aimed at raising awareness of the United Nations human rights mandates and programme. She has stressed that “human rights can best be respected in a culture of democracy, and no democratic process is sustainable without the support of an independent legal and judicial system. Without these basic ingredients, the right to life cannot be guaranteed.”
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