In our last week’s post you have been told interesting information about the death penalty in the United States and important events in the early and mid-20th century.
Today we will give you an
insight into the developments in Europe concerning death penalty
The death penalty has been completely
abolished in all European countries, except
for Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Of all modern European countries, San
Marino and Portugal were the first to abolish capital
punishment.
In 2012, Latvia became the last EU Member State to abolish capital
punishment in war time.
As of 2013, in Europe, the death penalty for peace-time crimes has been
abolished in all countries except Belarus, while the death penalty for war-time
crimes has been abolished in all countries except Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Except for Belarus, which carried out an execution in 2014, the last
executions by a European country occurred in Kazakhstan (which is partly in
Asia) in 2003, and Ukraine in 1997.
The absolute ban on the death penalty is enshrined in both the Charter of Fundemental Rights of the European Union and the European Convention of Human Rights of the Council of Europe, and is thus considered a
central value.
Although Russia is no member of the European Union, it is worth
mentioning that in Russia the death penalty has been indefinitely suspended
(under moratorium), therefore the country is de facto abolitionist
(in practice).
The abolition of the death penalty became a real trend since the end of
World War II when human rights became a particular priority.
In 1950 the European Convention on
Human Rights was adopted, however, some countries took many years to ratify
it. The United Kingdom retained the death penalty for high treason until 1998,
however, this rule was superseded by the absolute ban on the death penalty in
1976. William Joyce was the last person to be put on death row for high treason
in the UK, on January 3, 1946.
2009 was the first year that no one was executed anywhere in Europe,
however, in March 2010 Belarus executed the last two people on its death row.
The European Union has been against the death penalty for a very long time,
supporting the European Convention.
Its 2000 Charter of Fundamental Rights included an absolute ban on the
death penalty in all circumstances. The Charter has been made legally binding
by the Treaty of Lisboa as it got
fully ratified and effected on December 1, 2009.
The treaty has also a provision for the EU to join the Council of Europe and accede to the European Convention on Human Rights. The
EU has been an active advocate of abolish the death penalty worldwide and has
been promoting a United Nations moratorium on the death penalty, however, some
national governments such as Poland have opposed such moves.
A prerequisite for membership in the Council of Europe is abolition of
the death penalty. As a result, no execution has taken place on the territory
of the organisation’s member states since 1997 which is a great step forward!
The capital punishment issue is continuously monitored by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe. The current General Rapporteur on the abolition of the death penalty
for the Parliamentary Assembly is French member of parliament Marietta
Karamanli.
The only countries in Europe to have executed in the 21st century are:
- Belarus (last execution in 2014)
- Kazakhstan (last execution in 2003)
No member of the Council of Europe has carried out executions in the
21st century. The last execution on the present day territory of the Council of
Europe took place in 1997 in Ukraine.
Knowing about the current situation and opinion of death penalty within Europe, the United States of America should maybe think over abolishing this cruel way of killing criminals, as well, however, everybody has to build their own opinion about this sensitive topic and for sure, everybody has their own opinion regarding the death penalty.
One reason for the United States to prohibit death penalty would be the EU’s
embargo on the substance thiopental sodium they use for lethal injections in
the States.
Europe is, as mentioned above, absolutely against death penalty and
stopped the import of this substance into the United States in 2011. The
States, however, did not think over their current situation with death penalty
- quite the opposite, in fact – they started researching on their own substance
and managed to do so.
They began to use a toxic cocktail of three substances:
midazolam (leaves the doomed man unconscious)
vecuronium (paralyzes)
potassium chloride (stops the heart beat)
My colleague Christoph already mentioned this in his last week’s post:
With one person, Clayton Lockett, this toxic cocktail failed as the midazolam
substance did not work, and the man had to suffer 43 minutes as this substance
of the lethal injection was not as “effective” as the substance Europe had
imported before.
Can you even imagine how cruel this is?
It is horrible and sad that in our modern society something terrible
like this could even happen!
Against Death Penalty
There is no doubt – the European Day Against Death Penalty on October, 10 can certainly be justified. Even though, a lot could be achieved in terms of abolishing the death penalty, a worldwide unified regulation of prohibiting the capital punishment is still pending as the death penalty is still applied in approximately 68 states such as China, North Korea, Japan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia - to name but a few.
In some states, corruption, theft, kidnapping or drug trafficking is enough reason to be put to death!
In Islamic countries even adultery, homosexuality or apostasy are considered to be crimes which are to be punished with the death penalty - this is incredibly insane!
In Islamic countries even adultery, homosexuality or apostasy are considered to be crimes which are to be punished with the death penalty - this is incredibly insane!
There is still a lot to do in order to manage that there is a world-wide
abolition of the cruel capital punishment. Organizations such as Amnesty International as well as numerous citizens’ movements will continue standing up for the abolition of the death penalty for good. As long as there is no worlwide ban on the capital punishment, many human rights organizations will not stop fighting against it and putting theirselves out for a world free of death penalty!
Next week:
Since we thoroughly talked about the death penalty we would like to show
you the ropes of another sensitive issue, the right to bear arms, i. e. gun
ownership in the States.
Keep your eyeballs peeled for our next blog post!
Bibliography:
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