World and Europe Day against the Death Penalty [1]
Saturday, October 10, 2015 - 12:25. Updated on Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - 10:07.
Today (10 October), on the occasion of the European and World Day against the Death Penalty, the European Union and its Member States reiterate our strong opposition to the use of capital punishment.
The abolition of the death penalty is a key objective for the Union’s human rights policy. As one of the conditions for accession to the EU, every candidate country must ensure respect for fundamental rights and EU citizens’ rights, as guaranteed by EU legislation – this entails also the abolition of the death penalty. Our policy has borne fruit; the European Union has been a de facto death-penalty-free zone since 1997.
By 2015, around half of all countries in the world have completely scrapped capital punishment. Although the European Union is encouraged by this growing momentum towards abolition of the death penalty worldwide, the resumption of executions and breaches of decades of moratoria in different parts of the world clearly indicate a need for the European Union to maintain its long-standing and global campaign against capital punishment. We need to make sure our message is heard: the imposition of the death penalty in incompatible with the right to life and to human dignity.
The European Union and its Member States are pleased to note Tonga's status as a de facto abolitionist country since 1982. In line with recommendations made by the Universal Periodic Review carried out in 2013 in the auspices of the United Nations Human Rights Council, we look forward to the abolition of the death penalty by Tonga. There is no evidence that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime, and we therefore encourage Tonga to remain abolitionist in practice and to move towards the complete and unconditional abolition of the penalty from all its national legislation.
The European Union, together with its Member States, regularly reaffirms its opposition to the death penalty by using the various diplomatic tools at our disposal – including statements, demarches and Human Rights Dialogues with our partners – to advance the cause of worldwide abolition. The movement towards abolition is one of the top priorities in the EU's recently adopted Strategic Framework and Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy, and financial support for abolitionist work is available from the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR).
The European Union is active in its campaign work against capital punishment in multilateral frameworks such as the United Nations, and the European Union has for several years pushed for the adoption of a global resolution on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty. We regret to note that Tonga abstained their vote on this resolution during the UN General Assembly in 2014. This was the fifth time a moratorium had been debated, and a record number of UN Member Countries voted for it (117 out of 193) – showing that abolitionist are gaining ground.
The European Union is aware that the carriage of justice will always remain susceptible to human failings, but unlike prison sentences, the death penalty is irreversible and irreparable. The death penalty can neither reverse the crime it seeks to punish nor mitigate a victim's loss. The European Union and its Member States therefore encourage Tonga to follow other countries in the Pacific and remove the death penalty in its entirety from their legal system.
Produce by the European Union Delegation for the Pacific, in agreement with the EU Heads of Mission in Fiji.