The incoming Netherlands presidency of the European...

The incoming Netherlands presidency of the European Union will verify Hands Off Cain's forecasts on the outcome of a moratorium resolution at the UN General Assembly and should they be confirmed, prompt a review of the EU's current policy to refrain from raising the death penalty issue in that forum.
Ambassador at large for Human Rights Piet de Klerk and Human Rights and Peacebuilding Department official Sandra Pellegrom, in a meeting with HOC Treasurer Elisabetta Zamparutti and Board Member Anna Zammit - at The Hague on May 28 - discussed HOC's campaign for a worldwide moratorium on executions through a UN resolution.
HOC believes that a moratorium resolution at the GA would be approved by 97-104 votes in favour, 63-69 against and 17-25 abstentions.
The EU - that presented and then withdrew a similar resolution at the GA in 1999 - however fears that conditions are not yet favourable for the presentation of such a resolution.
"We have no intention of proposing to our EU colleagues a resolution on the death penalty or a moratorium at the coming session in New York," Ambassador De Klerk said, adding that "the trauma from the defeat of 1999 is still too fresh."
The Netherlands however - at an unspecified point in the future - will reconsider its position should their research bear out HOC's forecasts. v"Evidently the European Union is continuing to hide behind false alibis its lack of political will to bring to a successful conclusion a campaign that has been ripe for it for some time already," Zamparutti declared.