Death penalty: Keep momentum on abolition, UN Human Rights Committee urges States
GENEVA (29 October 2014) – The UN Human Rights Committee is calling on States to ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty. The use of capital punishment has declined
significantly in the 25 years since the Second Optional Protocol was adopted. The Human Rights Committee, which monitors
implementation of the Covenant, welcomes this progress but urges all States not merely to halt executions but to
actively commit to abolishing this affront to human dignity and the right to life.
“On the 25th anniversary* of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR), aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, the Human Rights Committee, guardian of this treaty, continues to
press for abolition.
Since the adoption of the Second Optional Protocol, progress towards the prohibition of executions has accelerated
significantly. Eighty-one States have ratified the Optional Protocol, while another 79 States have either abolished the
death penalty, or do not practise it. The Committee recognises this international trend towards abolition and welcomes
the ratifications this year by El Salvador, Gabon and Poland.
Even as early as 1982, the Committee was of the view that, “all measures of abolition should be considered as progress
in the enjoyment of the right to life”**.
While the right to life article of the Covenant (article 6) does allow for the death penalty in certain very restricted
cases, the Committee’s experience demonstrates that it is extremely rare for any case to comply with the strict
provisions of this article. In fact, most death penalty cases have also involved violations of other provisions of the
Covenant, notably those relating to due process guarantees as well as torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment. This issue is not, as some States persist in asserting, merely one of domestic criminal policy, but goes to
the heart of the most fundamental human right: the right to life. That is why the world’s abolitionist treaty obligation
is contained in a protocol to a human rights treaty.
In its dialogues with States this year, the Committee has continued to encourage abolition and has systematically
referred to the 25th anniversary in its Concluding Observations, while encouraging States to ratify the Second Optional
Protocol. This includes States which have retained the death penalty in law but have a moratorium on the death penalty
or are no longer carrying out executions in practice. Some such States were reviewed by the Committee at its latest
session, and one committed to ratifying the Second Optional Protocol soon.
It is important that even States which no longer carry out executions ratify the Second Optional Protocol. This is
because the treaty obligation would prevent them from easily restoring the death penalty in the future. It would require
a State to withdraw from the Protocol before any reinstatement. Ratification helps it resist any public clamour for a
return to this horrific practice.
The Human Rights Committee supports the aim for universal ratification of the Second Optional Protocol and encourages
all relevant States to act upon the steady momentum towards abolition. In this context, the Committee decided at this
session to adopt its next General Comment on the right to life (article 6).”
ENDS