The United States executes two thirds of all child...

The United States executes two thirds of all child offenders killed by the death penalty around the world, according to a report by Amnesty International.
Somalia is the only country other than America that has failed to sign the United Nations convention on the rights of children, which bans such executions, the study says.
In the past decade, US authorities have executed 16 offenders for crimes they committed as juveniles. In the same period Amnesty has documented eight others around the world: one in the Democratic Republic of Congo, one in Nigeria, one in Yemen, two in Pakistan and three in Iran. Pakistan and Iran have since abolished such executions, as has China.
"The execution of child offenders leaves treaties broken, resolutions subverted and respect for the UN and international law undermined," the report says. "By allowing the execution of child offenders, the US undermines its own claims to be a progressive force for human rights."
In 2002 three death-row prisoners have been executed for crimes they committed as 17-year-olds. All were black, and all were executed in Texas, the state US President George Bush used to govern and which Amnesty called "the perpetrator in chief".
The report tries to build on a Supreme Court ruling earlier in 2002 that banned the execution of mentally retarded adult offenders. The court argued that standards of decency had evolved to make such executions "cruel and unusual" punishment, and therefore unconstitutional.
Amnesty argues that if the same reasoning is applied to juvenile executions, they, too, should be banned.
Thirty-four of the 50 American states allow the execution2of adults for crimes they committed at age 16 or 17. The report says: "It is clear that the United States is out of step on this fundamental human rights issue. If the Supreme Court were to ignore the clearer global picture on the juvenile issue, it would be just one more sign of the arbitrary nature of the death penalty in the US."