On November 3, speaking at the Third Committee of the...

On November 3, speaking at the Third Committee of the General Assembly (human rights) under item 116a (death penalty), Kunio Umeda said that as is clear from the discussion in the last three years in the Commission on Human Rights, in the ECOSOC and in the Rome Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court in 1998, there is no international consensus on the abolition of the death penalty. "The fact that this question is addressed in the Second Optional Protocol and not in the main body of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights indicates that the decision is left to each State," Umeda said. "For these reasons, Japan is of the opinion that it is inappropriate to make a universal decision on the abolition of the death penalty, and it will oppose the EU draft resolution."