On January 29, Attorneys General of 12 countries, furious...

On January 29, Attorneys General of 12 countries, furious over the new British court decision curbing death sentences, signed a statement in Trinidad advising their governments to withdraw from the Inter-American Human Rights Convention and the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, then re-affirm all parts except those dealing with capital punishment. "This frustrates the will of our peoples and undermines their respect and confidence in the administration of criminal justice," said the statement signed by justice chiefs from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, Dominica, Bahamas and the former Dutch territory of Suriname. Trinidad and Tobago said it would withdraw from the Inter- American Commission on Human Rights in May 1999. Shelagh Simmons, coordinator of Caribbean Justice, a group that campaigns for the abolition of the death penalty, said she feared that after May those on death row would not have any international remedy to human rights violations.