A report of the United Nations Human Rights Council issued on May 15 has urged the United States to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The report, pro­duced as part of the United Nations’ peri­od­ic review of the human rights records of each of its mem­ber nations, iden­ti­fied cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States as a major human rights con­cern. At a hear­ing on the report on May 11, U.S. deputy assis­tant attor­ney gen­er­al David Bitkower acknowl­edged that the death penal­ty is an issue of ​“exten­sive debate and con­tro­ver­sy” with­in the U.S. and defend­ed the American death penal­ty as being sub­ject to ​“height­ened pro­ce­dur­al safe­guards.” 38 coun­tries called for the United States to either abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment or impose a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions with a view toward abo­li­tion. This was more than dou­ble the num­ber who did so dur­ing the first U.N. review of U.S. human rights prac­tices in 2010. Other rec­om­men­da­tions urged fair impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty and sug­gest­ed the need for addi­tion­al safe­guards to end racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in death sen­tenc­ing, wrong­ful con­vic­tions, and the exe­cu­tion of indi­vid­u­als with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties. France encour­aged trans­paren­cy with regards to lethal injection drugs. 

(“US Defends Record Before Top UN Human Rights Body,” Associated Press, May 11, 2015; Alba Morales, ​“Dispatches: Death Penalty, Police Abuse Dominate Review of US,” Human Rights Watch, May 11, 2015; ​“Draft report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review,” United Nations Human Rights Council, May 15, 2015.) See International.

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