Item 17 (a)
Promotion and protection of human rights: Status of
the International Covenants on Human Rights
Oral
statement by the Transnational Radical Party, a
non-governmental organisation in general consultative
status
Delivered by Marino Busdachin
Geneva,
20 April 1999
Madam Chair,
It was four and a half
years ago. The UN General Assembly voted a Draft
Resolution against the death penalty. Italy was the
country that more than others stood and worked for
its approval. The engagement of the Italian
Government was so clear and strong that it decided to
charge for this specific effort TRP's Secretary
Ms.Emma Bonino, today European Commissioner for
humanitarian aid, as Special Representative of Italy
for this issue.
Actualy, Madam Chair,
the Draft Resolution was defeated. After having voted
for the inclusion of the Item in the Agenda, the UN
General Assembly voted against the Draft Resolution.
But it was a political success, and it was kept like
a success by a vast share of the world public
opinion.
The Draft Resolution
was defeated at the UNGA for only 7 votes. Meanwhile,
a lot of things have happened.
A number of
Parliaments in the world have changed their penal
codes, deleting or suspending the death penalty; the
European Parliament has confirmed many times the will
of the vast majority of Europeans to abolish the
death penalty all over the world; there is no death
penalty anymore in South America and in a number of
countries on each continent.
Today there are at
least 100 member States of the UN that have abolished
the capital punishment or have suspended executions.
It is also very
important to remind that the Statute of the
International Tribunal for Crimes committed in former
Yugoslavia does not allow any sentence to death. The
Statute of the International Criminal Court also
excludes the death penalty.
Madam Chair,
These four and half
years have not passed in vain. The majority of states
are against the death penalty. A new Resolution will
be voted and approved here in this Commission.
Moreover, for the
first time, the Draft Resolution on death penalty
will be proposed not just by single states, but by
the European Union as such: no doubt that this
circumstance means further strength; no doubt that
such a circumstance will increase - and not decrease
- the will and the engagement of the EU member
states.
Never in the world
such a vast majority of states has been against the
death penalty; and the text of the Resolution could
and should be, because of that, stronger and more
concrete.
We ask the States -
starting from those that have proposed the Draft
Resolution - at least to delete one thing and to add
one needed thing: any part where states are asked to
abolish or suspend the death penalty for specific
categories of individuals, such as minors, mentally
disabled, pregnant women... should be deleted. The UN
Commission on Human Rights should declare that the
death penalty must be abolished for any person.
Then, something very
important is missing in the Draft Resolution we have
the chance to read: it is the request to the 1999
Session of the UNGA to adopt a Resolution declaring a
world-wide moratorium on executions, a crucial step
towards the definitive abolition of the capital
punishment all over the world.
The EU Draft
Resolution does not contain any step forward. There
are moments when not making a step forward means
concretely a step backwards.
Whithout a direct
proposal to the General Assembly, the resolution of
the Commission on Human Rights risks to be just an
alibi to avoid the G.A. decision
The year 1999 should
be the year of the world-wide moratorium: all the
needed conditions are ready to give the world such a
conquest in 1999, this year.
Thank you, Madam
Chair.
