European states tightened a ban on capital punishment,...

European states tightened a ban on capital punishment, agreeing to rule out its use in times of war, the Council of Europe said.
Foreign ministers and representatives of 36 of the Council of Europe's 44 member states signed the document pledging the total abolition of the death penalty.
"The Council of Europe was already proud to have banished the death penalty in peacetime on a continent where more than 800 million people live," said Walter Schwimmer, secretary-general of the council, which works to promote democracy and human rights.
Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, abolishes capital punishment even in cases of war, imminent threat of war or "exceptional circumstances".
"Protocol No. 13 opens the way to abolishing this barbaric punishment in all circumstances. We hope that this will be a decisive step towards a universal abolition of the death penalty and we shall spare no effort in achieving this," Schwimmer said.
The protocol will enter into force three months after 10 member states have ratified it.
A spokesman for the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry said Ireland, Malta and Switzerland signed and also ratified the document. Other signatories included Britain, France, Germany, Italy and other EU states, countries of Central and Eastern Europe including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and CIS countries Ukraine and Moldova.
Countries not listed as signing the protocol included Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Russia, Turkey and Slovakia, although this does not mean they will not do so later.
Currently 42 countries have signed the original human rights protocol banning the death penalty - except in times of war or imminent threat of war - and 39 of those have ratified it.
Russia and Turkey are the only Council of Europe states not to have signed the original protocol banning the death penalty.