On July 3, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on UN Member States that use the death penal­ty to abol­ish the prac­tice, stress­ing that the right to life lies at the heart of inter­na­tion­al human rights law. During a pan­el orga­nized by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Ban said, ​“The tak­ing of life is too absolute, too irre­versible, for one human being to inflict on anoth­er, even when backed by legal process… Where the death penal­ty per­sists, con­di­tions for those await­ing exe­cu­tion are often hor­ri­fy­ing, lead­ing to aggra­vat­ed suf­fer­ing.” Mr. Ban espe­cial­ly empha­sized the need for change among Member States that impose the death penal­ty on juve­nile offend­ers. He said, ​“I am also very con­cerned that some coun­tries still allow juve­nile offend­ers under the age of 18 at the time of the alleged offence to be sen­tenced to death and exe­cut­ed. The call by the General Assembly for a glob­al mora­to­ri­um is a cru­cial step­ping stone in the nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion towards a full world­wide abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty.” In 2007, the UN General Assembly first endorsed a call for a world­wide mora­to­ri­um of the death penal­ty, a res­o­lu­tion that has been repeat­ed in sub­se­quent years. Today, more than 150 States have either abol­ished the death penal­ty or do not practice it.

The UN will not estab­lish or direct­ly par­tic­i­pate in any tri­bunal that allows for capital punishment.

(UN News Service, ​“Secretary-General calls on States to abol­ish death penal­ty,” July 3, 2012). See International. Listen to our pod­cast on the inter­na­tion­al con­text of the American death penal­ty. See New Voices.

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