Abolishing Death penalty

Recent activities

Roundtable on the abolition of the death penalty, 8 October 2012 (Madrid)

On 8 October 2012, the International Commission against the Death Penalty organised a roundtable on the abolition of the death penalty. Representatives of intergovernmental and nongovernmental organisations and other experts discussed developments on the death penalty and identified legal and political challenges and opportunities for the coming five years. The Council of Europe Secretariat was represented by Mr. Jörg Polakiewicz, Head of the Council of Europe Human Rights Policy and Development Department:
- link to his speech

Commemoration of the 10th World Day against the Death Penalty, 10 October 2012

European and World Day against the Death Penalty, 10 October 2012

Rabat regional Congress about the Death Penalty, 18-20 october 2012 (Morocco)

Background

Europe has been a de facto death penalty free zone since 1997, with the exception of Belarus which is not a member of the Council of Europe.

When the European Convention on Human Rights opened for signature in 1950, it provided for the possibility of imposing the death penalty (Article 2 § 1: “No-one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law”). From the late 1960s, a consensus began to emerge in Europe that the death penalty seemed to serve no purpose in a civilised society governed by the rule of law and respect for human rights.

In 1982 the Council of Europe adopted the first legally binding instrument providing for the unconditional abolition of the death penalty in peace time – Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Forty-six members of the Council of Europe (out of 47) have signed and ratified Protocol No. 6. The Russian Federation has signed but not yet ratified it, but has respected a moratorium on the death penalty since soon after its accession to the Council of Europe in 1996. In 2003, the Council of Europe opened for signature Protocol No.13 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which abolishes the death penalty in all circumstances. Since then, it has been signed and ratified by forty-one members of the Council of Europe. Armenia, Latvia and Poland have signed but not ratified it, while Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation have not yet signed it.

The role of the various Council of Europe Bodies

The Committee of Ministers monitors the situation in member States to ensure compliance with their commitments. The subject, and in particular the ratification of the two Protocols, continues to be considered regularly at meetings of the Ministers’ Deputies “until Europe has become a de jure death penalty-free zone”.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has been a driving force in the movement to abolish the death penalty. It was at the origin of Protocol No. 6 and has since adopted successive texts to outlaw the death penalty (see Resolution 1044 and Recommendation 1246 from 1994; Resolution 1097 and Recommendation 1302 from 1996). It has constantly exerted pressure in order to encourage abolition, and insist in the meantime on moratoria in individual countries, both in the context of examining candidatures for membership and in its procedures for monitoring the compliance of existing member States' commitments. All new member States are required to ratify Protocol No. 6 within a fixed time scale.

The European Court of Human Rights has also recognised the considerable evolution with regard to the legal position of the death penalty. In the Grand Chamber judgment of 12 May 2005 Öcalan v. Turkey, the Court noted that capital punishment in peacetime had come to be regarded as an unacceptable form of punishment which was no longer permissible under Article 2 of the Convention. The Court held that the imposition of the death sentence on the applicant following an unfair trial by a court whose independence and impartiality were open to doubt amounted to inhuman treatment in violation of Article 3 of the Convention. In addition, in line with the principle laid down in the Soering v. the United Kingdom (1989) case, States must require firm assurances from the United States and other retentionist countries that persons to be extradited or expelled will not be sentenced to death. This principle has been followed by courts in numerous countries, also outside Europe, including Canada and South Africa.

Other useful links on this topic

Publication "Death is not justice"	Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly:
CoE Treaty Office: Protocol 6 and  Protocol 13	recommendation 1044
CoE Death Penalty special file	recommendation 1246
Posterfortomorrow.org	resolution 1097
	recommendation 1302
Death Penalty Worldwide Database: "The “Death Penalty Worldwide” Project. In April 2011, the Center for International Human Rights launched Death Penalty Worldwide, a free, on-line, searchable database and website that aims to provide comprehensive information relating to the death penalty worldwide. The database will allow researchers, judges, advocates, and policymakers to obtain access to reliable and transparent information regarding the laws and practices of every retentionist and abolitionist de facto country in the world."

The European Death Penalty Day

In 2007, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe decided to declare a European Day against the Death Penalty. The day is marked every year on 10 October with the objective to achieve a complete abolition of the death penalty in Europe, to promote efforts by the international community to introduce a world-wide moratorium and, ultimately, universal abolition of the death penalty, and to strengthen support for abolition, particularly in the face of possible attempts for the re-establishment of the death penalty in Europe. It also provides an opportunity to take stock of the progress achieved every year and to identify specific priority actions for the future. The European Union had joined the Council of Europe as co-sponsor of the European Day against the Death Penalty as from its second edition in 2008.

Action at international level

The Council of Europe supports all the initiatives aiming at a worldwide moratorium and at abolition of the death penalty, including in particular the Resolutions of the General Assembly on the Moratorium on the use of the death penalty, and the campaigns for the ratification of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights.

Council of Europe has also turned its attention to individual non-European states, more particularly those with observer status with the Organisation, since they are deemed to share the same fundamental values and principles as the Council of Europe. In practice this concerns the USA and Japan, as the death penalty is not applied in the three other observer States – Canada, Mexico and the Holy See. To this end, the Parliamentary Assembly has adopted a number of texts (the last in 2003) in which it found Japan and the United States once more in violation of their fundamental obligation to respect human rights due to their continued application of the death penalty and requiring them to make more efforts to take the necessary steps to institute a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.

The inclusion of Belarus into the EU Eastern Partnership, the opening of the Council of Europe Infopoint in Minsk and the adoption of Resolution 1671 (2009) by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe" on the situation in Belarus, which conditioned the return of a special guest status to the Parliament of Belarus with the introduction of a moratorium, have provided incentives and an opportunity to achieve progress towards the abolition of the death penalty in the only country in Europe * which continues to execute people.

The Organisation has also intervened, through the Committee of Ministers or its Secretary General, in a number of individual death penalty cases (mainly in the United States) with a view to drawing attention to the need to respect international human rights standards, including relevant UN Resolutions. In August 2009, the Secretary General provided the opinion of the Council of Europe on the death penalty in the context of a death penalty case pending before the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Korea.