UN Passes Symbolic Death Penalty Moratorium
UNITED NATIONS - It was another victorious day for the global anti-death penalty movement on Tuesday. Following the lead of the U.N.’s Third Committee in November, the U.N. General Assembly as a whole adopted a non-binding resolution supporting a moratorium on capital punishment.
One hundred and four countries voted in favour of the draft resolution, 54 states voted against and 29 abstained.
Yvonne Terlingen, Amnesty International’s representative at the United Nations, described the vote as a “historic step”.
“The result was expected, because the Third Committee had already voted overwhelmingly in favour. Countries rarely change their vote between the plenary and the Third Committee, but the result was better than we had in the Third Committee,” she told IPS.
In a statement, Sergio D’Elia, general secretary of Hands Off Cain, a group opposing death penalty, said, “After 15 years of campaigning, the approval of the moratorium on death penalty by the U.N. General Assembly represents an historical achievement and, we believe, the beginning of the end for the ’state killer’.”
“With this resolution, the United Nations, for the first time, declares that the death penalty is a human rights issue and its phasing out represents serious progress for the world in this field,” he said.
Before General Assembly president Srgjan Kerim called upon U.N. member-states to vote, representatives from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Nigeria and Singapore took the floor to express their opposition.
On behalf of 13 Caribbean states, the representative of Antigua and Barbuda said “given the reality of the situation in the Caribbean, the countries associated with this statement are forced to question the intended argument of the co-authors of the resolution.”
“Caribbean opponents of the resolution have not contravened any laws, international or domestic, by maintaining the death penalty in their domestic laws,” she said.
The representative of Barbados argued that any attempt by a country or a group of countries to impose its values on other U.N. member states would be an infringement of national sovereignty.
Singapore, which has been outspoken in support of the right to retain capital punishment, agreed that “for many delegations this is a criminal justice issue, and not purely a human rights issue, as the European Union and its allies assert. This resolution will make no difference to Singapore’s policies. We will continue to implement policies that work for us and best serve the interest of our people.”
Still, Terlingen stressed that “there is a worldwide trend towards abolishing the death penalty. Even if the debate doesn’t reach them today, it will reach them tomorrow. You see it for example in Africa, where there is a split in votes. There are, for instance, Islamic countries in the north of Africa which have voted in favour of the resolution.”
“It means that also in that bloc of countries there is a trend and that it’s going to be debated. This will stimulate the debate, because next year you have the same thing that is going to happen. It’s an annual resolution,” she said.
According to figures from Amnesty International, 133 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Last year, just 25 countries carried out executions, of which 91 percent took place in China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan and the United States.
Compared to 2,148 executions in 2005 worldwide, statistics show a decrease in implementation of the death penalty, with 1,591 recorded executions in 2006.
“This [result of the voting] is being reported back in to the countries and next year the secretary-general will have to report to the General Assembly on how all countries have implemented the resolution. Countries themselves will have to come up with an answer as to what they have done or why they have decided not to do something,” Terlingen said.
In a statement from Algiers, where he is visiting the site of a bomb attack last week that killed 41 people, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was “particularly encouraged by the support expressed for this initiative from many diverse regions of the world.”
“This is further evidence of a trend towards ultimately abolishing the death penalty,” he said.
Asked what the real world impact of the resolution would be, Terlingen responded, “I think it will be gradual.”
“Don’t expect an immediate change as a result of this resolution, but I think that over years to come you will see the death penalty change. This only happened because there is a trend towards abolition. It will accelerate the trend you have worldwide.”
© 2007 Inter Press Service
A good step. What supporters of the death penalty don’t understand is that a country with a death penalty is a country in which death is all pervasive. Far from preventing murder, a state-sanctioned killing process sends the message that it is ok to kill. And massive gun ownership sends the same message. If you want to reduce the murder rate get rid of the death penalty and get rid of guns (http://www.blognow.com.au/mrpickwick/33317/Collective_Egocentrism_Gone_Mad.html). Easy!
This is good news, and right after New Jersey just got rid of their death penalty.
So, doubly good news.
But I wonder why the resolution or draft of it was made NON-BINDING; or is UNGA unable to make binding resolutions?
I agree with what mrpickwick posted, and find it odd that we’d apply or even think of applying the death penalty to criminals who are already arrested and secured away from society, securely put away behind bars. After all, what’s important is to stop and prevent further violent crimes that presently are treated with death penalty or deserving such consideration. Once arrested and put behind bars, the objective of protecting society has been accomplished, and it’s a far, far greater deed to then work on helping hard criminals to rehabilitate; while putting them to death is what? It’s only punishment, and of an unnecessary kind.
When police kill killers in action, this is one thing, and unfortunate, but can be necessary or by accident, unintended; just that the “heat” of the killers’ actions causes or caused police to react quickly or immediately. When a killer is behind bars, then death penalty certainly is EXCESSIVE FORCE, and damn childish law. Not childlike, but childish; bad, wrong, … whatever.
It’s much better to work on REHAB. Without that effort, there is NO success possible; not as I see the whole of this topic anyway.
After all, it’s crucial to determine and consider why killers murder others, what has caused them to become this way; it is the route of therapy. And if murderers can be helped to successfully rehab., then not only will it have been therapeutic for such people, it’ll also be therapeutically healing for society. It’s the [constructive] approach, as opposed to the destructive one. Destroying buildings or any other things we make because they’re unfit for even repairing and reuse is one thing; destroying LIFE is a whole other matter.
And while anger sometimes causes me to think of the death penalty for Bush, Cheney, … and the extremely criminal ruling elites, f.e., this imagination ceases once my anger is again replaced with calm and reflective thinking. They need to be stopped, and it’s understandable that there are those of us who think of the d.p. for such criminals, but the best approach is for them to stop, and that’s what needs to be done. Incarcerating them for the rest of their earthly lives, YES; impeaching, convicting and then applying the d.p. is not what we should aim for. The d.p. should then be dropped.
As long as they are not stopped, then I could not blame anyone for wanting those criminals dead. Otoh, if they were impeached and sentenced to the d.p., then I doubt that I’d lose any sleep over it. They’re a whole other and most extreme category of murderers, so ….
Nonetheless, incarceration and efforts for rehab. is the best approach. Working to HEAL is much better, and following that approach is to be peace-and-justice makers. It’s the most complete solution that can be achieved when it is achieved. So that should be the objective, to try to achieve this solution of therapeutic rehab.
Isn’t it interesting how often the United States are lumped together with some of the very countries they like to think they are nothing alike?
“ 91 percent (of executions) took place in China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan and the United States.”
When discussing threats to world peace the United States are always (I say boldly) lumped together with the likes of North Korea, Iraq (pre Sadam Execution) Check out the overwhelming response sighting the US as the #1 risk to world peace. (see below)
“Which country really poses the greatest danger to world peace in 2003? TIME asks for readers’ views.”–Results to date: North Korea 5.6 %; Iraq 6.5 %; The United States 87.9 %; Total Votes Cast: 673,027 — “TIME Magazine,” March 10, 2003]
Only 5 percent of those polled said they believed the United States invaded Iraq “to assist the Iraqi people,” and only 1 percent believed it was to establish democracy there.–Walter Pincus, “Skepticism About U.S. Deep, Iraq Poll Shows,” Washington Post, November 12, 2003]
There is a truth found in many different religions who seek justice though peaceful means. The Christian perspective is found in the New Testament in the Xtian Bible. Matthew 26:52- One of the disciples defended Jesus by attacking a Roman guard, “Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword.” Other translations say “live by the sword, die by the sword”.
The lesson teaches that there is only judgment for those who live by the sword.
In the United States, A “Christian Country” where the military spending is larger then most nations GDP, where military manufacturers still produce land mines and weapons that kill American soldiers every year, where the Bush administration sees fit to offer a $28 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, the country where 80% of the 9/11 conspirators were raised, we are seeing the fulfillment of a prophetic word.
Truly those who live by the sword, shall die by the sword. Your leaders have gotten rich on the business of war, and have called judgment down on you.