7^th World Congress Against Death Penalty Opens in Brussels, Belgium

An esti­mat­ed 1,500 gov­ern­ment offi­cials and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions from more than 140 coun­tries gath­ered in Brussels, Belgium on February 26, 2019 for the open­ing of the Seventh World Congress Against the Death Penalty. The World Congress ­– orga­nized by the Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty – is the world’s lead­ing con­vo­ca­tion on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The four-day meet­ing for­mal­ly opened on February 27 with a cer­e­mo­ny in the European Parliament in Brussels fea­tur­ing remarks by European Union Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini, Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister Didier Reynders, and video mes­sages from United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and Pope Francis encour­ag­ing the del­e­gates to strive for glob­al abo­li­tion of the death penalty.

The open­ing of the Congress fol­lowed a high-lev­el death-penal­ty pan­el dis­cus­sion by the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland on February 26 focus­ing on human rights abus­es in the appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, intro­duced the pan­el by reit­er­at­ing the inter­na­tion­al body’s long-held beliefs on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. ​“The UN oppos­es the use of the death penal­ty, every­where, and in all cir­cum­stances,” Bachelet said. ​“Today, I am pleased to say, there is a clear inter­na­tion­al trend towards abo­li­tion.” The top­ic of human rights, dis­crim­i­na­tion, and the death penal­ty, she said ​“is par­tic­u­lar­ly well cho­sen, because nowhere is dis­crim­i­na­tion more evi­dent than when one looks at the peo­ple on death row – the peo­ple who soci­ety has decid­ed are beyond reha­bil­i­ta­tion and should be killed. … [D]eath rows are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly pop­u­lat­ed by the poor and eco­nom­i­cal­ly vul­ner­a­ble; mem­bers of eth­nic minori­ties; peo­ple with psy­cho-social or intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties; for­eign nation­als; indige­nous per­sons; and oth­er mar­gin­alised mem­bers of soci­ety.” Speaking on behalf of the eight coun­tries that spon­sored the res­o­lu­tion call­ing for the pan­el debate, Minister Reynders expressed spe­cial con­cern about the use of the death penal­ty as pun­ish­ment for peace­ful expres­sion of reli­gious or polit­i­cal beliefs, blas­phe­my, same-sex rela­tion­ships, and con­sen­su­al sex­u­al rela­tions out­side of mar­riage. ​“The appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty in these cas­es,” he said, ​“takes on a par­tic­u­lar­ly discriminatory nature.”

In his video mes­sage to the Congress, Secretary-General Guterres said “[t]he death penal­ty has no place in the 21^st cen­tu­ry.” He called the record num­ber of nations that spon­sored last December’s UN General Assembly res­o­lu­tion for a glob­al mora­to­ri­um on the use of the death penal­ty evi­dence of progress, but said it was still ​“far from enough.” The death penal­ty, he said ​“is still employed despite its cru­el­ty, despite the myth that it deters crime and despite the knowl­edge that inno­cent peo­ple have been – and may con­tin­ue to be — put to death.” The video mes­sage by Pope Francis (pic­tured) encour­aged activism against the death penal­ty as a ​“coura­geous affir­ma­tion of the prin­ci­ple of the dig­ni­ty of the human per­son.” The Pope called cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment a ​“seri­ous vio­la­tion of the right to life. … While it is true that human soci­eties and com­mu­ni­ties have to often face very seri­ous crimes that threat­en the com­mon good and the safe­ty of peo­ple, it is not less true that today there are oth­er means to atone for the dam­age caused,” Francis said. The Pope stressed that ​“the dig­ni­ty of the per­son is not lost even if he has com­mit­ted the worst of the crimes. … It’s in our hands to rec­og­nize the dig­ni­ty of each per­son and to work so that more lives are not eliminated.”

The Seventh World Congress also pro­vid­ed a spe­cial forum for European lead­ers to focus on the use of the death penal­ty in Belarus, the sole remain­ing coun­try on the con­ti­nent to autho­rize cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The 47-nation Council of Europe and the World Congress have joint­ly orga­nized a round table meet­ing on the Belarusian death penal­ty on February 28, with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Anaïs Marin, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Belarus and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Belarusian government.

(EU Parliament to host con­fer­ence on abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty, Modern Diplomacy, February 23, 2019; Christopher Vincent, Belgium con­tin­ues to argue for uni­ver­sal abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty, Brussels Times, February 26, 2019; Inés San Martín, Pope says Church’s teach­ing on death penal­ty has ​‘matured’, Crux, February 27, 2019; Human Rights Council holds high-lev­el pan­el on the death penal­ty, in par­tic­u­lar with respect to the rights to non-dis­crim­i­na­tion and equal­i­ty, United Nations Human Rights Council, February 26, 2019; Death penal­ty: Filling Europe’s black hole, Council of Europe, February 26, 2019.) Read the video mes­sage of UN Secretary-General António Guterres to the 7^th World Congress and watch the video state­ment by Pope Francis. Read the open­ing state­ment of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet at the Geneva human rights forum. See International.