Delegates to the Sixth World Congress Against the Death Penalty, held in Oslo, Norway from June 21 to June 23, 2016, have renewed the orga­ni­za­tion’s call for a glob­al mora­to­ri­um on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The event, attend­ed by more than 1300 rep­re­sen­ta­tives from 80 coun­tries, fea­tured dis­cus­sions by death penal­ty stake­hold­ers from around the world. Participants includ­ed human rights offi­cials from the United Nations and European Union, as well as Justice Ministers from both abo­li­tion­ist and reten­tion­ist coun­tries, Nobel Peace Prize lau­re­ates, glob­al death-row exonerees, non-gov­ern­men­tal human rights orga­ni­za­tions, attor­neys, jour­nal­ists, and activists from dozens of coun­tries. On Wednesday, June 22, Pope Francis (pic­tured, click to enlarge) addressed the Congress in a video mes­sage, in which he reit­er­at­ed his sup­port for abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty. He said the death penal­ty is not ​“con­so­nant with any just pur­pose of pun­ish­ment,” and that ​“It does not ren­der jus­tice to vic­tims, but instead fos­ters vengeance. The com­mand­ment ​‘Thou shalt not kill’ has absolute val­ue and applies both to the inno­cent and to the guilty.” In an inter­view with the Australian Broadcasting Company, Philip Ruddock, Australia’s Special Envoy for Human Rights described his efforts to per­suade U.S. and Chinese offi­cials to move away from cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. ​“I believe when your friends sug­gest that maybe there’s time for a change, you do start to think a bit more seri­ous­ly about it,” he said. ​“I think many Americans are embar­rassed that they con­tin­ue to have some states that main­tain capital punishment.” 

On June 23, Cornell Law School’s Death Penalty Worldwide International Human Rights Clinic issued a new report, ​“Pathways to Abolition of the Death Penalty.” The report explores abo­li­tion efforts and debates in four­teen coun­tries that have recent­ly abol­ished cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, high­light­ing key fac­tors that led to abo­li­tion. It con­trasts nations like Nepal and Cote d’Ivoire, where abo­li­tion came as part of con­sti­tu­tion­al foun­da­tions, with Venezuela and Burundi, where cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was abol­ished in response to its polit­i­cal­ly-moti­vat­ed use as a tool of repres­sion. It also dis­cuss­es the role of broad­er legal reforms, objec­tive research, and rais­ing public awareness. 

(L. Yaxley, ​“World Congress Against the Death Penalty calls for glob­al mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, Australia joins call,” Australian Broadcasting Company, June 26, 2016; ​“There’s no excuse for it: Pope Francis on the death penal­ty,” Catholic News Agency, June 22, 2016; 6th World Congress Against the Death Penalty; Death Penalty Worldwide.) See International. Photo by Death Penalty Information Center.

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