PRI attended the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation meeting in Warsaw, Poland on 26 and 27 September 2007 to encourage support for the draft resolution on a global moratorium on the death penalty which is due to be presented to the UN General Assembly in October. Gulnara Kaliakbarova, PRI’s Regional Director for Central Asia, gave an oral presentation to the plenary on behalf of Amnesty International, PRI, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty and the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights. PRI, together with the aforementioned NGOs, also held a side meeting at the event. Participants were addressed by Joachim José Martinez, a former prisoner who spent four years on death row in Florida, USA after being wrongly convicted of murder. Speakers also included Zulfia Abdulla of Amnesty International and PRI's Gulnara Kaliakbarova.

The joint statement given to the plenary reads as follows:

'A resolution calling for a global moratorium on executions will be introduced at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) 62nd session which begins on 18 September 2007.

Endorsement by the UNGA of a global moratorium on executions would be a significant milestone towards achieving the goal of a death penalty-free world.

The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman degrading punishment. It violates the right to life. It is irrevocable and can be inflicted on the innocent. It has never been shown to deter crime more effectively than other punishments. It legitimizes an irreversible act of violence by the state. The death penalty is discriminatory and is often used disproportionately against the poor, minorities and members of racial, ethnic and religious communities. The death penalty is often imposed after a grossly unfair trial. But even when trials respect international standards of fairness, the risk of executing the innocent can never be fully eliminated: the death penalty will inevitably claim innocent victims, as has been persistently demonstrated.

Many governments have recognized that the death penalty cannot be reconciled with respect for human rights. As a result, an increasing number of countries across the world have abolished the death penalty in their national legislations. Furthermore, many governments have done more than abolish capital punishment in their own legal system by leading and supporting international initiatives to achieve worldwide abolition of the death penalty. Ninety-five states including the majority of the members of the OSCE signed or joined a statement presented at the UNGA 61st session on 19 December 2006 “calling upon states that still maintain the death penalty to abolish it completely and, in the meantime, to establish a moratorium on executions”.

There is a momentum towards abolition of the death penalty. 133 UN member states, from all regions on the world, have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice and only 25 countries carried out executions in 2006. Ninety-one per cent of all known executions took place in six countries: China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan and the USA.

Belarus is the last executioner among the OSCE states of Europe and Central Asia. Belarus still maintains the death penalty for 13 offences. In July 2005, the deputy head of the presidential administration said that abolition of the death penalty could be considered “once social and economic preconditions were in place”.

The United States of America is slowly turning against the death penalty. Executions carried out in 2006 represented the lowest annual total for a decade. This seems to reflect decreasing public support for the death penalty. States, including Montana, North Carolina, New York and New Jersey have moved against the death penalty through measures including a moratorium on executions or even its abolition.

There is a real momentum to end capital punishment in all regions in the world. This trend is further supported by the increased ratification of international and regional treaties providing for the abolition of the death penalty. During 2006 and until August 2007 Andorra, Moldova, Turkey and Ukraine have ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR and Albania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Turkey have ratified Protocol 13 to the ECHR.

Amnesty International, International Helsinki Federation on Human Rights, Penal Reform International and the World Coalition against the Death Penalty call on all the OSCE states taking part in this meeting to support this important cross-regional initiative by urging the UNGA to adopt a resolution calling for a global moratorium on executions. By adopting a resolution on a moratorium on executions, the UNGA will take a further, major step towards the worldwide abolition of the death penalty.'

Further information: The World Coalition against the Death Penalty has launched a petition to support the resolution. PRI, as an active member of the Coalition, urges supporters of abolition, other organisations and the media to sign the petition and circulate it as widely as possible.

The petition and further information including leaflets and other materials are available at: http://www.worldcoalition.org/petitions/?petition=3