PhD studies in human rights: More Progress in General Assembly Vote on Death Penalty Moratorium

Saturday, 20 December 2014

More Progress in General Assembly Vote on Death Penalty Moratorium

On 18 December, by a recorded vote of 117 in favour to 37 against, with 34 abstentions, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the biannual resolution on the moratorium on the use of the death penalty.

This is the fifth such resolution since 2007. The number of States in favour has steadily increased, providing confirmation of the evolving law and practice with respect to capital punishment.

The 2007 resolution was adopted by 104 in favour to 54 against, with 29 abstentions. The following year, a similar resolution was adopted by 106 in favour to 46 against, with 34 abstentions. It was decided that the issue would return to the Assembly’s agenda every second year. The third moratorium resolution was adopted by the General Assembly in 2010 by 109 States in favour with 41 against and 35 abstentions. In the fourth moratorium resolution, adopted in 2012, votes in favour totalled 111 with 41 against and 34 abstentions.

The number of States voting against the resolution has, in the space of seven years, declined by 17. That is approximately 2.5 per year. But note as well that the number of States joining the majority on this resolution is accelerating. For the past two years, 3 States per year have changed their position to support for the resolution.

This trend in the political positions of States is also reflected in their conduct. Ten years ago, 62 States were deemed retentionist, defined as a State that has conducted an execution within the past decade. Today, that number is about 37. That is a decline of about 2.5 States every year.

Divide 37 by 2.5 and you get 14.8. The death penalty can be expected to disappear by 2029, if not sooner.

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William A. Schabas is professor of international law at Middlesex University in London. He is also professor of international criminal law and human rights at Leiden University, emeritus professor human rights law at the Irish Centre for Human Rights of the National University of Ireland Galway, and an honorary professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in Beijing and Wuhan University. He is the author of more than 20 books and 300 journal articles, on such subjects as the abolition of capital punishment, genocide and the international criminal tribunals. Professor Schabas was a member of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Technical Cooperation in Human Rights and president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. He serves as president of the Irish Branch of the International Law Association chair of the Institute for International Criminal Investigation. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. Here is the full c.v.

Dr Yvonne McDermott is Senior Lecturer in Law at Bangor University, UK, where she is also Director of Teaching and Learning and Co-Director of the Bangor Centre for International Law. Yvonne is a graduate of the National University of Ireland, Galway (B. Corp. Law, LL.B.), Leiden University (LL.M. cum laude) and the Irish Centre for Human Rights (Ph.D.). Her research focuses on fair trial rights, international criminal procedure and international criminal law. She is the author of Fairness in International Criminal Trials (Oxford University Press, 2016).

Niamh Hayes has been the Head of Office for the Institute for International Criminal Investigations (IICI) in The Hague since September 2012. She is about to complete her Ph.D. on the investigation and prosecution of sexual violence by international criminal tribunals at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland Galway. She previously worked for Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice as a legal consultant, and as an intern for the defence at the ICTY in the Karadzic case. She has lectured on international criminal law and international law at Trinity College Dublin and, along with Prof. William Schabas and Dr. Yvonne McDermott, is a co-editor of The Ashgate Research Companion to International Criminal Law: Critical Perspectives (Ashgate, 2013). She is the author of over 45 case reports for the Oxford Reports on International Criminal Law and has published numerous articles and book chapters on the investigation and prosecution of sexual and gender-based violence as international crimes.

Joseph Powderly is Assistant Professor of Public International Law at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University. Between September 2008 and January 2010, he was a Doctoral Fellow/Researcher at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, where he worked, among other projects, on a Irish Government-funded investigation and report into the possible perpetration of crimes against humanity against the Rohingya people of North Rakhine State, Burma/Myanmar. He is currently in the process of completing his doctoral research which looks at the impact of theories of judicial interpretation on the development of international criminal and international humanitarian law. The central thesis aims to identify and analyze the potential emergence of a specific theory of interpretation within the sphere of judicial creativity. Along with Dr. Shane Darcy of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, he is co-editor of and contributor to the edited collection Judicial Creativity in International Criminal Tribunals which was published by Oxford University Press in 2010. He has written over 80 case-reports for the Oxford Reports on International Criminal Law, as well as numerous book chapters and academic articles on topics ranging from the principle of complementarity to Irish involvement in the drafting of the Geneva Conventions. In December 2010, he was appointed Managing Editor of the peer-reviewed journal Criminal Law Forum. His research interests while focusing on international criminal and international humanitarian law also include topics such as the history of international law and freedom of expression.