South Korea’s Ministry of Justice has announced that it is con­sid­er­ing replac­ing the death penal­ty with life with­out parole, a move that the min­istry says stems from con­cerns about human rights. ​“We will thor­ough­ly exam­ine the pos­si­bil­i­ty of abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty as part of efforts to set up a human rights-ori­ent­ed penal sys­tem.… We will review the ade­qua­cy of intro­duc­ing per­ma­nent life impris­on­ment which can­not be remit­ted by parole, as well as nece­sary bud­get and effect of the sys­tem,” a min­istry offi­cial not­ed. Korea plans to review whether cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is effec­tive in pre­vent­ing crime and how soci­ety will be affect­ed if the prac­tice is banned. The gov­ern­ment plans to exam­ine changes in the fre­quen­cy of vio­lent crime in coun­tries that have aban­doned the death penal­ty. Last year, Korea’s National Human Rights Commission rec­om­mend­ed that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment be abol­ished, and that call has been echoed by civic and reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions through­out the nation. June hear­ings have been sched­uled to dis­cuss the issue and the National Assembly is soon expect­ed to con­sid­er pend­ing leg­is­la­tion that would abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. (The Korea Times, February 21, 2006). 

See International and Life Without Parole.

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