The world progresses while the US clings to the Dark Ages
This week, the UN's Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Committee (the "Third Committee") approved a resolution calling for a global moratorium on the death penalty; the resolution will go to the full General Assembly for consideration, possibly as soon as next month.
Of course, the United States voted with the medieval contingent:
The representative of the United States said that, while his country recognized that the supporters of the resolution had “principled positions”, international law did not prohibit capital punishment. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights specifically recognized the right of countries to carry out capital punishment for certain crimes. He urged all countries that applied the death penalty to do so in accordance with their human rights obligations, and not in a summary or extrajudicial fashion.
Contrast that officious response to this statement by the Rwandan representative:
The representative of Rwanda said that, in spite of his nation’s recent history, which included the 1994 genocide that had taken the lives of more than 1 million Rwandans, his country had abolished the death penalty. Rwanda could have retained that penalty to punish those who had carried out the genocide, but even that had not led it to do so.
If Rwanda sees no need for the death penalty, then neither should we. The death penalty is not a deterrent, as is commonly argued; in fact, states with the death penalty have a higher average murder rate than states with no death penalty. The death penalty is not justice; it is nothing more than petty, state-sanctioned vengeance.
The director of Amnesty International said this:
"Today's decision--adopted by the UN's highest political body with universal membership--is a clear recognition of the growing international trend towards worldwide abolition of the death penalty, endorsed by the UN Secretary-General," said Irene Khan. "It is a crucial step forward in creating a death penalty free-world--as envisaged by the General Assembly three decades ago."
We as a nation would do well to reflect on this note at the end of the Amnesty press release:
So far, 133 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Only 25 countries actually carried out executions in 2006. In 2006, 91 percent of all known executions took place in China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan and the United States.
That's some mighty illustrious company we're keeping.