Opinion - Editorials

The European Union's example

The European Parliament's overwhelming recent endorsement of a proposal to move a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly for a universal and unconditional moratorium on executions, in the wake of the hanging of Saddam Hussein and two of his aides, has renewed the world-wide campaign that is rooted in the conviction that death penalty undermines human dignity. Aside from offending the basic respect for the right to life, capital punishment has, historically, ill-served the purpose of the administration of criminal justice. The fact that its abolition has been laid down as a pre-condition for membership of the European Union (EU) and that all the 27 constituent states are members of the Council of Europe, a pan-European human rights body that champions the removal of death penalty from the statute, lends the current initiative enormous legitimacy. It is no less significant that the statement from the EU to the third `World Congress against the Death Penalty', which met in Paris, should unequivocally reject any suggestion that the fight against terrorism could be cited in justification of capital punishment. The EU's current move is at the behest of Italy's center-left coalition, which has made a determined bid to exert the country's international clout as a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. It has sought to rally global support for an immediate halt to executions as part of the long-term objective of total abolition. The move follows close on the heels of an EU-sponsored landmark December 2006 non-binding declaration at the U.N., which was signed by 85 countries across different geographical divisions for a moratorium on executions.

Progress towards the realisation of the ultimate goal of total abolition has admittedly been incremental. However, the absence of the death penalty on the statutes of the international tribunals that are investigating into crimes of genocide and mass violations of humanitarian law in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda is a major factor. A few EU national capitals are believed to have expressed reservations on the proposal to move the U.N. for fear of offending the sensitivities of the United States, where the death penalty continues to be applied. But nothing should deter the present German Presidency of the EU Council — which is expected to take a final view on the matter — from raising the subject at the multilateral body since one of the professed goals of the U.S. foreign policy, not in the least in Iraq, has been the defence of human rights and democracy.

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