Citing the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a United Nations pan­el rec­om­mend­ed that the United States impose a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. The report, issued on July 28 by the U.N. Human Rights Committee, stat­ed the pan­el was ​“con­cerned by stud­ies accord­ing to which the death penal­ty may be imposed dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly on eth­nic minori­ties as well as on low-income groups, a prob­lem which does not seem to be ful­ly acknowl­edged.”

The pan­el, made up of 18 inde­pen­dent experts who review the prac­tices of 156 coun­tries who have rat­i­fied the covenant, urged the U.S. to lim­it the num­ber of crimes that car­ry a penal­ty of death to the most seri­ous crimes. It also request­ed that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment assess the extent that death sen­tences are hand­ed down dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly on minori­ties and poor peo­ple.

The U.S. mis­sion issued a state­ment in response to the report, but did not specif­i­cal­ly men­tion the com­mit­tee’s pro­pos­als relat­ing to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.

Criticism by the pan­el brings no penal­ties beyond inter­na­tion­al scruti­ny. The U.S. rat­i­fied the treaty in 1992 with a num­ber of reser­va­tions, includ­ing pro­vi­sions on the death penalty.

(Washington Post, July 28, 2006). See also International.

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