The death penalty and the EU's fight against it

AT A GLANCE

EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service

Author: Ionel Zamfir, Members' Research Service

PE 635.516 – February 2019

The European Union is strongly opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances, and fighting it is a foremost

priority of its external human rights policy. While most countries in the world have abolished capital punishment,

death sentences continue to be handed down and carried out in a number of countries. The Union uses its

diplomatic and political weight to encourage these countries to join the abolitionist ranks, or at the very least to

respect international minimum standards. It funds campaigns to increase awareness of the need to end capital

punishment, and restricts trade in substances that could be used for executions.

The controversy around capital punishment

In history, the death penalty was applied across the world, in various cultures and religions, for the most

serious crimes such as murder, and sometimes also for more trivial ones. For more than two centuries, it has

been a matter of vivid philosophical and ethical

controversy whether it should be preserved or abolished.

Arguments have focused on delivering appropriate retribution and deterring other criminals, among other

things. After the end of the Second World War, the abolitionist movement gained momentum, driven by

increased public awareness about the value of life and the right to life, the dignity of human beings, the risk

of judicial errors and the fact that execution involves torture. A milestone was reached with the adoption

by the Council of Europe in 1982 of Protocol No 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights – the first

legally binding instrument abolishing the death penalty in peacetime. This protocol has been ratified by 46

of the Council of Europe's 47 member states; all but Russia. A few years later, in 1989, the first international

document aiming at worldwide abolition was adopted by the UN: the

Second Optional Protocol to the

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. To date, it has been ratified by 86 states.

Today, the abolitionist position has prevailed

worldwide, with most countries

being abolitionist

(106 countries for all crimes, plus 8 for ordinary

crimes only, as of July 2018). The latest countries to

abolish the penalty, in 2017-2018, were

Burkina

Faso and Guatemala (for ordinary crimes only), and

Guinea and Mongolia (for all crimes). In 2018, the

Roman Catholic Church

decided that the death

penalty is inadmissible under all circumstances. A

number of countries are considered 'abolitionist in

practice' (

28 according to Amnesty International,

but the number could be higher

depending on how

this is defined). Around 56 states still retain the

penalty, but fewer than half of those actually carry

out executions (

23 in 2016 and 2017). The trend

towards abolition is not linear. In the United States,

support for capital punishment is growing again, after a sharp decline from 1996 to 2016, with

54 % of

persons surveyed in favour in 2018. In India, capital punishment has recently been extended to certain types

of rape after a series of cases that shocked public opinion across the country and in the wider world.

Executions per country in 2017

Data source: Amnesty International (AI).

China remains the world’s top executioner, but the number

of executions is a state secret. AI puts it in the 1000s.

EPRS The death penalty and the EU's fight against it

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European Union position

All EU Member States have abolished the death penalty. They are bound by the European Convention on

Human Rights (ECHR), particularly its Article 2, which states that 'Everyone’s right to life shall be protected

by law', and by its Protocols No 6 and No 13. The European Union is required by its Treaties to respect and

promote human rights in all its internal and external policies. The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights echoes

the ECHR in underlining the inalienable right to life in its Article 2. The EU institutions are obliged to take

this into account, both in internal and external policies.

To this end, the EU pursues the abolition of the death penalty in the world as a matter of the utmost priority.

The EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy (2015-2019)

includes an objective (No 15) on

combatting torture, ill-treatment and the death penalty. In order to streamline all its efforts to fight the

death penalty across the world, the Council adopted

EU guidelines on death penalty in 1998. These were

the first human rights guidelines ever adopted by the Council. They were subsequently updated in 2001,

2008 and 2013. The first point of the guidelines states that, 'The European Union has a strong and

unequivocal opposition to the death penalty in all times and in all circumstances.' The guidelines set out a

list of actions the EU should undertake, such as raising the issue of the death penalty in EU dialogues and

consultations with third countries, intervening in legal proceedings on a case-by-case basis (as

amicus

curiae, or otherwise), encouraging states to ratify the relevant international texts, providing assistance to

civil society to promote abolition, and providing assistance in the legal field to enhance the right to a fair

and impartial trial. According to these guidelines, in countries that still retain the death penalty, the EU

should advocate the establishment of a moratorium, and if this is not possible, for its increasingly restrictive

use and for the respect of minimum standards, in line with international law.

In its trade policy, the EU has adopted legislation

that prohibits trade in goods that can be used for torture

or execution. Such goods include barbiturate agents, used in lethal injections for the execution of human

beings. The EU ban caused a shortage of lethal injection materials and considerable hurdles for executions

in the United States. The EU contributed to the launch in 2017 of a new global alliance, whose aim is to ban

trade in goods that can be used for torture or executions. The

Alliance for Torture-Free Trade is an initiative

of Argentina, the European Union and Mongolia, bringing together countries from around the world to end

the trade in goods used for capital punishment and torture.

The EU also uses its trade policy to encourage countries to comply with their international human rights

obligations. The GSP+ system provides trade preferences to countries that ratify and comply with a range

of international conventions, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

, which

outlines minimum standards on the use of the death penalty. The 2018 European Commission GSP+ report

on Pakistan for example highlighted that the application of the death penalty there remains a grave concern.

The EU is the largest donor in the fight against the death penalty worldwide. According to the Commission,

from 2008 to 2016, the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) allocated more

than €22 million to projects supporting the fight against the death penalty around the world. The

instrument funds civil society organisations that advocate abolition and the establishment of moratoria

and, where the death penalty still exists, the observance of international minimum standards.

The EU raises its opposition to the death penalty in international fora, where it aims to build alliances to

this end. It has supported the adoption in the UN General Assembly of several resolutions on a moratorium

on the use of the death penalty (the last one in December 2018

, with the support of 121 nations).

European Parliament position

The European Parliament is strongly opposed to the death penalty, a position it has expressed repeatedly

in various resolutions, for example in its December 2018 resolution

on the annual EU report on human rights

and democracy in the world in 2017. In its 2015 resolution on the death penalty, the Parliament expressed

its strong opposition to this type of punishment, and condemned its use to suppress opposition, or on

grounds of religious belief, homosexuality or adultery. It also expressed its conviction that death sentences

fail to deter drug trafficking or to prevent individuals from falling victim to drug abuse. It has also addressed

the death penalty in debates and resolutions on individual countries such as on the

death penalty in

Indonesia (2015) and on executions in Kuwait and Bahrain (2017).