ARCHIVE · DOCUMENT
JANUARY 1, 2013HANDS OFF CAIN PRO MORATORIUM CAMPAIGN OUTLOOK
After 19 years of international initiatives against the death penalty, we are able to evaluate the success of Hands Off Cain’s “business” from its foundation to the present. In terms of the cost-benefit ratio, emerges there the extraordinarily clear “productive” value of the “public offering” that we built in 1993. Since the founding of Hands Off Cain, 56 of the 97 retentionist States that were member of the UN at that time, have abandoned the practice of the death penalty and 15 of them have done do since 2006, the year following the re-launching of the initiative at the United Nations. Three more countries (Palau, East-Timor and Tuvalu), that became members of the UN after 1993, are also abolitionist ones.
The approval, in December 2007, of the Resolution for a Universal Moratorium on Capital Executions by the General Assembly of the United Nations, was a fundamental step, not only in the struggle against the death penalty, but also in the affirmation of the Rule of Law, as well as those natural rights historically taken up and often written into the laws of Nations, but not always respected.
Since then, the concrete effects of the U.N. Resolution have been witnessed in several nations, where many positive steps regarding abolition took place, as documented in this new report published by Hands Off Cain.
In December 2012, the General Assembly will vote a new resolution in favor of a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, and Hands Off Cain has established two priorities, two objectives for its initiatives in support of the UN Resolution.
The first is increasing the number of co-sponsor countries and votes in favor of the Resolution. To reach this goal, Hands Off Cain, with the support of Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has planned to organize, during next months, some missions to Africa, in particular, to four countries – Zimbabwe, Chad, Central African Republic, Swaziland – where there have been significant steps towards abolition of the death penalty.
The second priority is to strengthen the text of the new Resolution adding two basic requirements to be addressed to the countries that still practice capital punishment.
The first is to abolish “State Secrets” concerning the death penalty: several countries, mostly authoritarian, do not provide information on its application and the lack of information available concerning public opinion is a direct cause of an increasing number of executions. This is the case, for example, of China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, which, not by chance, are among the first executioner-countries in the world.
The second request is to limit death penalty to the “most serious crimes” and abolishing its mandatory prediction for certain typologies of crime. According to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, “In those countries where death penalty has not been abolished, death sentences may be imposed only for the most serious crimes.” The ‘most serious crimes’ threshold for the “lawful” application of capital punishment is also supported by UN political bodies, which clarified that by ‘most serious crimes’ it intends only those ‘with lethal or other extremely grave consequences’. Regardless, the death penalty for non-violent crimes, in particular economic ones, and for certain drug-related offences, continue to be handed down and carried out in countries like China, Iran and North Korea. Mandatory death sentences that do not consider the individual merits of a particular case have also been widely criticized by human rights authorities.
Finally, Hands Off Cain proposes to include in the new Resolution the institution by the UN Secretary-General of the position of a Special Envoy. His job should be, not only to monitor the situation and to push for increased transparency within the systems of capital punishment, but also to continue to persuade those who still maintain the death penalty to accept the request of the United Nations for a moratorium on executions with a view to abolish the death penalty.
Yet, to move decisively towards eliminating the bogus and archaic system of the death penalty, it is necessary for all the Nations supporting the UN Pro-Moratorium Resolution to work to enforce it concretely and under all circumstances.
Coherence in international anti-death penalty commitment requires first of all to deny any support to this practice all over the world.
In 2010, the only pharmaceutical producer authorized to produce and sell Pentothal in the United States, Hospira Inc., whose headquarters is in Illinois, decided, because of problems with its production line and a weak American market, to pass the production to an Italian subsidiary. After an intense campaign, conducted in particular by Hands Off Cain, in January of 2011, the company decided to definitively end the production and to completely avoid the barbiturate ending up in American penitentiaries. Hospira's decision opened the way for other pharmaceutical companies to take similar decisions – from multinationals like Novartis or its subsidiary Sandoz, from the Indian pharmaceutical Kayem to Danish Lundbeck – and, eventually, it led to the European Decision in December 2011 to review European rules concerning trade of certain goods that could be used for capital punishment.
Because of a scarcity of key execution drugs, many American States and Vietnam have been forced to suspend or postpone executions.
On 28 May 2012, Vietnamese State media said a shortage of the drug used in lethal injections had halted the execution of hundreds of prisoners on death-row. Apparently, the authorities in Vietnam have failed to execute anyone, since when death by firing squad was replaced by lethal injections in July 2011. “In the past year, the execution of more than 400 inmates could not take place. More than 100 of them have completed all the paperwork,” Deputy Public Security Minister Dang Van Hieu, quoted by Tuoi Tre, said. He added that: “Their execution awaits the drug, which is not available yet” and that imports of the unspecified drug “had proved difficult.”
Another front of the campaign against the death penalty targets in particular Iran, where hangings are often carried out in public by crane. The noose is made by heavy rope or steel wire and it is placed around the neck in such a way that it crushes the larynx causing extreme pain and prolonging the death of the condemned.
In July 2011, the Japanese crane company Tadano announced it would end contracts with the Iranian government following a “Cranes Campaign” launched by the association United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) that has published on its website a list of eight international companies that send crane resources to Iran, with photos of the cranes being used as execution devices. In August 2011, another Japanese crane manufacturer, UNIC, announced the end of its business in Iran, joining Tadano and Terex in pulling out of Iran following UANI’s Cranes Campaign.
Ways to obtain abolition of the death penalty are endless and Hands Off Cain will continue to try them all to truly bring an end to the aberrant and contradictory principle according to which life should be defended by inflicting death. The liberal and anti-prohibition way of the moratorium – instead of a tout court abolition of the death penalty – that Hands Off Cain together with Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty have chosen to tread and bring in all international forums since 1993, has demonstrated to be the principle way to overcome obstacles apparently insurmountable, and open doors otherwise inaccessible.
The approval, in December 2007, of the Resolution for a Universal Moratorium on Capital Executions by the General Assembly of the United Nations, was a fundamental step, not only in the struggle against the death penalty, but also in the affirmation of the Rule of Law, as well as those natural rights historically taken up and often written into the laws of Nations, but not always respected.
Since then, the concrete effects of the U.N. Resolution have been witnessed in several nations, where many positive steps regarding abolition took place, as documented in this new report published by Hands Off Cain.
In December 2012, the General Assembly will vote a new resolution in favor of a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, and Hands Off Cain has established two priorities, two objectives for its initiatives in support of the UN Resolution.
The first is increasing the number of co-sponsor countries and votes in favor of the Resolution. To reach this goal, Hands Off Cain, with the support of Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has planned to organize, during next months, some missions to Africa, in particular, to four countries – Zimbabwe, Chad, Central African Republic, Swaziland – where there have been significant steps towards abolition of the death penalty.
The second priority is to strengthen the text of the new Resolution adding two basic requirements to be addressed to the countries that still practice capital punishment.
The first is to abolish “State Secrets” concerning the death penalty: several countries, mostly authoritarian, do not provide information on its application and the lack of information available concerning public opinion is a direct cause of an increasing number of executions. This is the case, for example, of China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, which, not by chance, are among the first executioner-countries in the world.
The second request is to limit death penalty to the “most serious crimes” and abolishing its mandatory prediction for certain typologies of crime. According to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, “In those countries where death penalty has not been abolished, death sentences may be imposed only for the most serious crimes.” The ‘most serious crimes’ threshold for the “lawful” application of capital punishment is also supported by UN political bodies, which clarified that by ‘most serious crimes’ it intends only those ‘with lethal or other extremely grave consequences’. Regardless, the death penalty for non-violent crimes, in particular economic ones, and for certain drug-related offences, continue to be handed down and carried out in countries like China, Iran and North Korea. Mandatory death sentences that do not consider the individual merits of a particular case have also been widely criticized by human rights authorities.
Finally, Hands Off Cain proposes to include in the new Resolution the institution by the UN Secretary-General of the position of a Special Envoy. His job should be, not only to monitor the situation and to push for increased transparency within the systems of capital punishment, but also to continue to persuade those who still maintain the death penalty to accept the request of the United Nations for a moratorium on executions with a view to abolish the death penalty.
Yet, to move decisively towards eliminating the bogus and archaic system of the death penalty, it is necessary for all the Nations supporting the UN Pro-Moratorium Resolution to work to enforce it concretely and under all circumstances.
Coherence in international anti-death penalty commitment requires first of all to deny any support to this practice all over the world.
In 2010, the only pharmaceutical producer authorized to produce and sell Pentothal in the United States, Hospira Inc., whose headquarters is in Illinois, decided, because of problems with its production line and a weak American market, to pass the production to an Italian subsidiary. After an intense campaign, conducted in particular by Hands Off Cain, in January of 2011, the company decided to definitively end the production and to completely avoid the barbiturate ending up in American penitentiaries. Hospira's decision opened the way for other pharmaceutical companies to take similar decisions – from multinationals like Novartis or its subsidiary Sandoz, from the Indian pharmaceutical Kayem to Danish Lundbeck – and, eventually, it led to the European Decision in December 2011 to review European rules concerning trade of certain goods that could be used for capital punishment.
Because of a scarcity of key execution drugs, many American States and Vietnam have been forced to suspend or postpone executions.
On 28 May 2012, Vietnamese State media said a shortage of the drug used in lethal injections had halted the execution of hundreds of prisoners on death-row. Apparently, the authorities in Vietnam have failed to execute anyone, since when death by firing squad was replaced by lethal injections in July 2011. “In the past year, the execution of more than 400 inmates could not take place. More than 100 of them have completed all the paperwork,” Deputy Public Security Minister Dang Van Hieu, quoted by Tuoi Tre, said. He added that: “Their execution awaits the drug, which is not available yet” and that imports of the unspecified drug “had proved difficult.”
Another front of the campaign against the death penalty targets in particular Iran, where hangings are often carried out in public by crane. The noose is made by heavy rope or steel wire and it is placed around the neck in such a way that it crushes the larynx causing extreme pain and prolonging the death of the condemned.
In July 2011, the Japanese crane company Tadano announced it would end contracts with the Iranian government following a “Cranes Campaign” launched by the association United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) that has published on its website a list of eight international companies that send crane resources to Iran, with photos of the cranes being used as execution devices. In August 2011, another Japanese crane manufacturer, UNIC, announced the end of its business in Iran, joining Tadano and Terex in pulling out of Iran following UANI’s Cranes Campaign.
Ways to obtain abolition of the death penalty are endless and Hands Off Cain will continue to try them all to truly bring an end to the aberrant and contradictory principle according to which life should be defended by inflicting death. The liberal and anti-prohibition way of the moratorium – instead of a tout court abolition of the death penalty – that Hands Off Cain together with Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty have chosen to tread and bring in all international forums since 1993, has demonstrated to be the principle way to overcome obstacles apparently insurmountable, and open doors otherwise inaccessible.