Italian Senate Motion on the Death Penalty (1-00466)

The Senate, whereas: on 28 April last the UN Commission on Human Rights adopted the resolution submitted by the European Union on a global moratorium on the death penalty for the year 2000; the proposal for a global moratorium on the death penalty has been examined by the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly in view of the December session of the General Assembly; Italy, a totally abolitionist country, played a leading role in conducting this campaign at the international level and is the country that submitted the first moratorium proposal in 1994; the suspension of death sentences would be a valuable humanitarian choice to open the new millennium; notwithstanding deep historical and cultural differences between national legal systems and the need to introduce sanctions capable of ensuring collective security, the global moratorium on the death penalty is a sign of great humanitarian openness; a conflict has arisen within the Third Committee among the different parties; so far 72 countries have supported the European proposal for a global moratorium; 72 countries had submitted two amendments to the draft resolution, reaffirming that each State has the inalienable right to choose its own political, social and cultural system, without any interference from other States, and nothing in the UN Charter authorizes the United Nations to intervene in issues concerning a State´s domestic jurisdiction; the signers of the two amendments include de facto abolitionist States and States that abstained from voting on the European proposal of a global moratorium; although the content of the two amendments was simply a re-wording of rules already codified at the international level - whose re-affirmation was not incompatible with the moratorium on executions, as in the case of the introduction of other important transnational humanitarian law rules - and Mexico made an attempt at negotiation, the European Union decided not to submit the resolution for the global moratorium on executions to the vote by the UN General Assembly.

commits the Government: to making all possible efforts within the European Union so that it continues to exert pressure in favor of a global moratorium on executions and maintains the abolition of the death penalty as a prerequisite for accession for new Union members; to acting within the European Union so that the objective of the introduction of the moratorium can be pursued with flexibility and become part of the evolutionary interpretation of the Charter already underway, along the very lines which have made it possible over the decades, in compliance with the Charter principles, to regard human rights as shared and binding values of the international community.

Submitted by Senators: Salvato, Senese, De Luca Athos, Follieri, Caruso Antonino, Vertone Grimaldi, Manieri, Scopelliti, Marchetti, Cirami, Milio, Russo Spena, Peruzzotti, Tarolli, Pinto.