10 October marks the World and European Day against the Death Penalty. The abolition of the death penalty worldwide is one of the main objectives of the EU’s human rights policy. The EU considers the death penalty inhumane and a violation of human dignity. It also does not deter violent crime. Any capital punishment resulting from a miscarriage of justice, from which no legal system can be immune, represents an irreversible loss of human life.
“Today we mark the World and European Day against the Death Penalty. I pledge my continued personal commitment, as well as that of the European Union, to doing away with the death penalty , which has no place in the modern world,” said EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the European Commission, Catherine Ashton.
The EU plays the leading role in and is the biggest donor to efforts by civil society organizations around the world to campaign for the abolition of the death penalty. The EU uses all available tools of diplomacy and cooperation assistance to work towards the abolition of the death penalty. Where the death penalty still exists, the EU calls for its use to be progressively restricted and insists that it be carried out according to internationally-agreed minimum standards.
The EU encourages public debate, strengthening public opposition and putting pressure on retentionist countries to abolish the death penalty, or at least introduce a moratorium as a first step. The EU also acts against the death penalty in multilateral forums, such as the United Nations; a culmination of this effort has been the series of resolutions on the moratorium on the use of the death penalty, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.
July 2011 marked the 20th anniversary of the entry into force of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the main worldwide legal instrument for the abolition of the death penalty. The EU encourages all States to ratify or accede to this protocol.
The EU is also the first regional body to have adopted rules prohibiting the trade in goods used for capital punishment (and torture and ill-treatment), as well as the supply of technical assistance related to such goods. The EU’s political commitment has been matched by substantial financial support for concrete projects.
For more information, see MEMO/11/669
What is the state of play?
There is a worldwide trend towards abolition of the death penalty: Between 1993 and 2009, the number of countries that abolished the death penalty by law for all crimes, grew from 55 to 97; As of December 2010, 139 countries – more than 2/3 of the countries of the world – were abolitionist in law or practice; In 2010, 23 countries/territories were known to have carried out executions and at least 67 to have imposed death sentences (China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen, the US and Saudi Arabia top the list).
While use of the death penalty around the world is decreasing, the figures remain too high. Where capital punishment remains in force, there are serious problems with regard to the respect of international norms and standards, notably in the limitation of the death penalty only to the most serious crimes, the exclusion of juvenile offenders from its scope, and guarantees of a fair trial.
What is the EU doing in the fight against death penalty?
The global abolition of the death penalty is one of the main objectives of the EU’s human rights policy. In 2010, the EU issued more than 15 statements on the death penalty, most of which were on individual death penalty cases, and carried out numerous demarches against the death penalty. HR/VP Catherine Ashton also declared, in her speech to the European Parliament in June 2010, the EU’s work on abolishing the death penalty worldwide a “personal priority”.
The abolition of the death penalty is one of the thematic priorities under the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR). Since 1994, the European Commission has funded through the EIDHR over 50 projects worldwide, with an overall budget of more than €33 million. The aims include lobbying and advocating for restriction of the application of the death penalty, as well as moratorium and abolition, raising public awareness in retentionist countries through public education, outreach to influence public opinion, studies on how states’ death penalty systems comply with international minimum standards, informing and supporting strategies for replacing the death penalty, such as alternative sentencing, efforts for securing the access of death row inmates to appropriate levels of legal support and training for lawyers and judges to restrict the scope of capital punishment.
A new Call for Proposals on the actions against the death penalty was launched on 15 June 2011, with an allocation of €7 million. This makes the EIDHR the lead source of funding for abolitionist projects worldwide.
A concrete example?
This year, within the framework of an EIDHR-funded action a regional conference on the abolition and/or moratorium on the execution of the death penalty will be held in Kigali on 13 and 14 October. The conference, gathering representatives from Ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs from more than 20 Sub-Saharan African countries, aims to discuss the abolition of the death penalty in Africa and increase the number of countries supporting the UNGA resolution for a moratorium on the death penalty to be voted in 2012. This is a concrete example of how the European Union, third countries and civil society can work together and make the difference towards the progressive restriction and abolition of the death penalty worldwide.
For more information: http://www.eeas.europa.eu/human_rights/adp/index_en.htm http://www.eidhr.eu/highlights/death-penalty
