UN Committee Supports Death Penalty Moratorium (Updated)

By a 99-52 vote, with 33 abstentions, the United Nations’ Third Committee has endorsed a worldwide moratorium on the use of the death penalty:

It isn’t the first time that a majority of the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations has voted against capital punishment, but each time brings renewed promise to opponents of the practice. On Thursday, after two days of heated debate, the committee passed a draft resolution calling for a worldwide end to the death penalty. The question remains as to whether the resolution will earn the approval of a majority of the UN’s General Assembly.

Ninety-nine of the committee’s member states voted in favor of the resolution, 52 against. Strange bedfellows were made as the United States sided with countries like Syria and Iran in the pro-death penalty camp. Thirty three countries abstained.

The resolution expressed “deep concern” about the death penalty, contended that it violates human dignity and challenged the notion that capital punishment has a preventative impact on crime. It calls on countries practicing capital punishment to “establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.”

The countries opposed to the resolution, led by Singapore, maintain that it is morally righteous and impinges on national sovereignty.

[snip]

The draft resolution was co-sponsored by European Union states and 60 other countries. It must now be voted on by the entire 192-member General Assembly, which has rejected similar initiatives twice before, in 1994 and 1999. The first was defeated by eight votes, and the second was withdrawn at the last minute. If the General Assembly votes in favor this time, the resolution would be legally nonbinding, but would carry moral weight.

Robert Hagan, the US representative in the committee stated after the vote, “The United States recognizes that the supporters of this resolution have principled positions on the issue of the death penalty. But nonetheless it is important to recognize that international law does not prohibit capital punishment.”

Hagan is right, of course: Article 6(2) of the ICCPR provides only that “in countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law in force at the time of the commission of the crime.” But that does not mean that the UN should not condemn the punishment in order to bring moral pressure against those countries that still make use of it. Indeed, you can judge the US by the company that it keeps: according to Amnesty International, more than 90 percent of all executions last year took place in China, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and the US alone.

UPDATED: The original post referred to the controversial Human Rights Committee, instead of to the Third Committee — sloppy posting on my part, and even sloppier reporting on the part of Der Spiegel (and seemingly every other news outlet). My thanks to John Knox for the correction.