Speaking at the UN Commission on Human Rights on item...

Speaking at the UN Commission on Human Rights on item 17, the promotion and protection of human rights, Masaru Watanabe said since the European Union was going to submit a draft resolution on the question of the death penalty, Japan wanted to state its position on this issue. Japan believed that the question of whether to retain or abolish capital punishment should be carefully studied by each State, fully taking into account the sentiments of its people, the state of its domestic crime and its criminal justice policy in general. In this context, attention was drawn to the fact that at the Third Committee of the fifty-fourth General Assembly, the European Union had withdrawn a draft resolution of a similar nature. This clearly showed that there was no consensus on the matter.