Pro-Life Amendment Shot Down as UN Committee Okays Death Penalty Moratorium

IFRL Daily News

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Pro-Life Amendment Shot Down as UN Committee Okays Death Penalty Moratorium

The U.N. General Assembly is expected to approve a moratorium on the death penalty, following two days of rancorous debate during which more than a dozen proposed amendments were defeated, including one calling for the need to protect the lives of unborn children.

During the debate, countries opposed to the resolution -- many of them small nations in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean -- accused the European Union of trying to impose its values on others.

At a meeting in New York on Thursday, the social, humanitarian and cultural committee voted 99-52, with 33 abstentions, for a resolution "establishing a moratorium on execution with a view to abolishing the death penalty."

The resolution says capital punishment "undermines human dignity." It will now go to the full Assembly for a vote. If it passes it will not be binding, but supporters say it will carry moral and political weight.

Of a raft of proposed amendments considered by the committee, two dealt with abortion.

One would have inserted words into the resolution text urging member states "to take all necessary measures to protect the lives of unborn children," and the other sought to include a reference to abortion being allowed only "in necessary cases, in particular, where life of mother and/or the child is at serious risk."

The United States voted in favor of the first amendment, and abstained from the vote on the second one, saying the scope of the latter amendment had been broader than necessary to address the issue.

"We are in agreement with the view expressed in this amendment that the lives of the unborn deserve the strongest protection, and we agree that countries that advocate for the abolition of the death penalty should be at least equally scrupulous in showing concern for innocent life," U.S. delegate Joseph Rees was quoted as telling the committee.

Representatives of a number of countries supporting the resolution said the abortion-related amendments were not germane to the resolution, and would undermine or detract from it.

Both amendments were defeated, as were others dealing with member states' right to make their own decisions without interference and to take into account their own particular circumstances.

The attempt to introduce language referring to the unborn echoed the reaction of Poland's former conservative government to the E.U.'s stance on capital punishment.

E.U. plans to mark an official "European day against the death penalty" last month -- a decision requiring consensus -- were blocked when Poland called instead for a "right to life" day that also dealt with abortion and euthanasia. Left-wing E.U. critics then questioned Poland's commitment to "European values."

The death penalty moratorium resolution has been pushed by a group of countries led by the 27-member E.U.

During the debate, Singapore's representative Vanu Menon accused the sponsoring countries of "want[ing] to impose their values on us. Apparently, anyone who has a different view must be forced to change," he said.

"Now that all in the European Union have decided to abolish the death penalty, they expect the rest of us to follow."

Menon said that for many countries, the death penalty was a criminal justice matter not a human rights issue. Capital punishment could not be a violation of human rights because it is not forbidden under key U.N. rights documents, he said.

The representative of Portugal, which holds the rotating E.U. presidency, retorted that the initiative was not a European one. (Dozens of non-European co-sponsors include Chile, Australia and the Philippines.) He said the promotion of all human rights and fundamental freedoms must be considered as a priority objective of the U.N.

After the resolution passed, Menon congratulated the sponsors on what he called a "pyrrhic victory," noting that the vote outcome made clear the absence of international consensus on the issue.

The international abolitionist group Hands Off Cain says 27 countries carried out at least 5,628 executions last year, with China alone accounting for about 89 percent of the total. Others high up the list for 2006 executions include Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan, the United States and Saudi Arabia.

An international coalition of groups opposed to the death penalty last week handed the General Assembly president a petition bearing more than five million signatures supporting abolition.

In a Gallup poll of Americans for USA Today last month, 69 percent of respondents favored the death penalty for a person convicted of murder, up from 64 percent two years earlier.

Last September the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an application from a Kentucky man on death row challenging that state's executions by lethal injection.

Since then a number of executions have been stayed, most recently on Thursday, when the Supreme Court gave a Florida man sentenced to death for raping and killing a child an eleventh hour reprieve pending a decision on the Kentucky case.

Contact: Patrick Goodenough

Source: CNSNews.com

Publish Date: November 16, 2007