State­ment by Baroness Scot­land and Madame Ruth Drei­fuss

In De­cem­ber, the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly for a glob­al mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty. This fourth such vote in five years was sup­port­ed by a record 111 na­tions. While it is dis­ap­point­ing that T&T was not able to sup­port the res­o­lu­tion, it is com­mend­able that T&T has not im­ple­ment­ed the death penal­ty since 1999. A di­verse group of na­tions across the re­gions of the world since 1980 have tak­en steps on the road to abo­li­tion.

There is, how­ev­er, no room for com­pla­cen­cy. In the first month of 2013, Sau­di Ara­bia be­head­ed nine peo­ple. In re­cent weeks, Yemen has sen­tenced a ju­ve­nile of­fend­er to death, fu­elling hunger strikes by scores of im­pris­oned chil­dren. Iran has re­port­ed­ly be­gun im­pos­ing death sen­tences for pet­ty crim­i­nals ac­cused of rob­bery.

Else­where, a court in In­done­sia, where there have been no state ex­e­cu­tions since 2008, sen­tenced a British grand­moth­er to death for drug traf­fick­ing–re­port­ed­ly to gasps of dis­be­lief in the court­room. Zim­bab­we has hired a hang­man af­ter sev­en years of search­ing while Sri Lan­ka, which has not car­ried out an ex­e­cu­tion since 1976, has re­port­ed­ly re­cruit­ed two ex­e­cu­tion­ers who are un­der­go­ing spe­cial train­ing.

In the US, there were, in 2012, 43 ex­e­cu­tions and 77 death sen­tences. How­ev­er, the trend in the US is firm­ly to­wards few­er ex­e­cu­tions and death sen­tences. Sev­en­teen states have re­pealed the death penal­ty and a fur­ther eight have not ex­e­cut­ed any­body for 12 years or more. Over­all, two-thirds of the death sen­tences na­tion­al­ly come from coun­ties that con­tain just one-eighth of the Amer­i­can pop­u­la­tion.

Gen­er­al­ly, the UN call for a mora­to­ri­um on ex­e­cu­tions is un­der­pinned by a glob­al trend to­wards abo­li­tion that has dra­mat­i­cal­ly gath­ered pace in re­cent years. One hun­dred and five coun­tries have re­pealed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in their laws and oth­ers no longer car­ry out ex­e­cu­tions.

Quite sim­ply, the death penal­ty does much harm and is in­ef­fec­tive at de­ter­ring vi­o­lent crime. States which have abol­ished cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment of­ten have low­er mur­der rates than those that have yet to do so. The death penal­ty is al­so in­her­ent­ly cru­el and risks ex­e­cu­tion of the in­no­cent. Its harms are in­creased if there are prob­lems with the con­di­tions of those who are placed on death row and there are prob­lems with the ju­di­cial sys­tem such as the right to com­pe­tent le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. In No­vem­ber 2011, there were 31 pris­on­ers on death row in T&T.

Much re­mains to be done, not least be­cause a hand­ful of states re­main will­ing to risk in­ter­na­tion­al out­rage, con­tro­ver­sy and iso­la­tion by per­sist­ing with this cru­el, in­hu­man and de­grad­ing prac­tice. Iran, Sau­di Ara­bia and Yemen–all in the glob­al spot­light in re­cent weeks–are ac­com­pa­nied by Chi­na, Iraq, North Ko­rea and the US as the world's most pro­lif­ic ex­e­cu­tion­ers year on year.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, ex­pe­ri­ence from all over the world con­firms that the death penal­ty is not just ir­rev­o­ca­ble and a vi­o­la­tion of the right to life, it is in­ef­fec­tive as a de­ter­rent to vi­o­lent crime. The ex­pe­ri­ence for T&T is the same. As more coun­tries con­clude that the on­ly place for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is in the his­to­ry books, the re­main­ing ex­e­cut­ing states will find bet­ter so­lu­tions to their vi­o­lent crime prob­lems in ex­am­in­ing the ef­fec­tive­ness of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem as a whole and look­ing at the wider caus­es of crime.

The chal­lenge for their lead­ers is to show po­lit­i­cal courage and fore­sight, and to bring their laws in­to the mod­ern age by im­me­di­ate­ly sus­pend­ing use of the death penal­ty, as a first step to­ward full abo­li­tion.