Between April 12-15, 2010, the death penalty working group...

Between April 12-15, 2010, the death penalty working group of the African Commission on Human and People's Rights organised a second regional meeting in Cotonou, Benin. The conference focused on North- and West-African countries and around 50 people from 15 countries in the region came to take part in the debates. Plenary sessions and workshops targeted the death penalty in Africa and the means to achieve abolition. A continental conference involving experts and officials from African Union member states will follow the Kigali and Cotonou regional meetings. African Commissioner Sylvie Kayitesi, who chairs the working group, is planning to use that opportunity to present African heads of State and government with a draft additional protocol on the death penalty to the African Charter on Human and People's Rights. Such a move would give Africa a chance to adopt a binding instrument calling for the abolition of the death penalty.