United Nations General Assembly

DEATH PENALTY: UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY’S VOTE PRO-MORATORIUM A FURTHER STEP TOWARDS ABOLITION

December 18, 2014: the General Assembly of the United Nations advanced again its call to end the use of the death penalty with the passage of a new Resolution calling on States to establish a moratorium on executions, with a view to abolishing the practice. It was the fifth such text adopted since 2007.
The Resolution was adopted by a record number of 117 votes in favour (+ 6 respect to 2012) and the lowest of the votes against, 38 ( - 3 respect to 2012), while 34 abstained (like in 2012) and 4 were absent (- 3 respect to 2012) at the time of the vote.
Noteworthy is especially the cosponsorship, for the first time, of Sierra Leone and the vote of Niger, which for the first time voted in favour. This vote is the result of a mission in the country of Hands Off Cain and the Nonviolent Radical Party led by Marco Pannella, which was held between 19 and 21 November.
Along the Niger have, for the first time, voted in favour also Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Fiji and Suriname. As a further positive sign, Bahrain, Myanmar, Tonga and Uganda moved from opposition to abstention.
By its terms, the Assembly called on UN member-States: To progressively restrict the use of the death penalty and not to impose capital punishment for offences committed by persons below 18 years of age, on pregnant women and on persons with mental or intellectual disabilities; To make available relevant information with regard to their use of the death penalty, inter alia, the number of persons sentenced to death, the number of persons on death row and the number of executions carried out, and the number of death sentences reversed, commuted on appeal and in which amnesty or pardon has been granted; To respect international standards that provide safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty, in particular the right of foreign nationals to receive information on consular assistance within the context of a legal procedure.
"The new vote at the UN for a moratorium records the positive developments taking place in the world towards the end of the Cain-State and the overcoming of the fake and archaic principle of eye for an eye... This further step towards abolition of the death penalty was determined by the dialogic and creative choice of Hands Off Cain and the Nonviolent Radical Party to offer – from the beginning and it alone – the moratorium on executions as a key step to the abolition." So said Sergio D'Elia, Secretary of Hands Off Cain, who – along with Marco Pannella, Marco Perduca and Elisabetta Zamparutti – has waited for the outcome of the vote on the Resolution on the Moratorium in the Radical Party headquarters in Rome, in connection with the UN in New York.