IRELAND

STATEMENT BY AMBASSADOR ANNE ANDERSON

PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF IRELAND

at the 54TH SESSION OF THE COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

Geneva, 23rd March 1998

Item 13: Status of the International Covenants on Human Rights

Permanent Mission of Ireland to the United Nations,

45-47 Rue de Lausanne, 1211 Geneva 2

Tel. 732 85 50

Fax. 732 81 06

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I wish to address the Commission on agenda item 13, in particular on the question of the death penalty.

Last Year. the Commission on Human Rights adopted for the first time a resolution calling on states to abolish the death penalty. The debate was conducted in a positive atmosphere, without polarisation and with mutual respect. It is important that this atmosphere be sustained and that this year's resolution receive even more broadly based support.

In last year's discussion. I outlined the Irish position of fundamental opposition to capital punishment and our conviction that its world wide abolition would enhance human dignity and affirm respect for all human life.

This year. I would wish to lend special emphasis to a couple of elements.

President Havel remarked last week that the Universal Declaration on Human Rights has generated "successive guidelines defining the rules of a worthy life together for the people and nations on this earth". Two of these guidelines, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. set clear limitations to the use of the death penalty.

Both instruments prohibit capital punishment for crimes committed by persons below the age of 18 years. Yet the Committee on the Rights of the Child has repeatedly expressed concerns in relation to this matter and in the course of this decade. several states have executed prisoners for crimes committed while they were under eighteen.This Commission regularly pronounces on the human rights of persons with disabilities our delegation will bring a resolution on this matter before the current session. I believe all of us accept that we owe a special duty of care to the most vulnerable groups in our societies. There must be a particular sense of distress, therefore, at reports concerning the execution of mentally disabled persons which are received periodically by the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.

Many of us consider that the limitations set by the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on the use of the use of the death penalty are, at best, an unsatisfactory minimum. It is all the more unacceptable if even these modest limitations are disregarded.

Mr. Chairman,

Despite some setbacks. the trend towards suspension and abolition of the death penalty is gathering pace. Almost half of the members of the United Nations have now abolished the death penalty, either in law or practice. The Secretary General has reported that, since we last met, two states have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, one has adopted a moratorium on its use and one has restricted its use. In addition, two further states have acceded to the Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

My delegation believes that we are engaged in a process which is both progressive and irreversible.

Regional initiatives are making a very important contribution. Last June for example, the European Union expressed for the first time a common stance concerning the universal abolition of the death penalty. In October, a summit meeting of the Council of Europe issued a clear call for universal abolition and insisted on the maintenance in the meantime of moratoria on executions throughout Europe.

The approach adopted by this Commission and by regional organisations has been reinforced by the decision to exclude the death penalty for crimes against humanity under consideration by the International Criminal Tribunals for former Yugoslavia and

Rwanda. We are hopeful that this approach will be maintained when the draft statute for the permanent International Criminal Court is finalised later this year.

In a year when we will adopt a Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, it is appropriate that we should specially honour those defenders who have suffered the death penalty for their work. We also pay tribute to the commitment of those individuals and nongovernmental organisations who help to keep international attention focused on this issue.

Only a society which has suffered from persistent abuse of the death penalty can set atrue worth on its abolition. I quote President Mandela, faced with calls for the return of the death penalty:

"We are determined that the death sentence will never come back in this country. It is not because the death sentence has been scrapped that crime has reached such unacceptable levels. Even if the death sentence is brought back. crime itself will remain as it is".

There is a weight of empirical evidence behind this view. We urge that the deterrence argument is examined calmly, rationally, drawing on the accumulated experience in many countries.

Mr Chairman,

The death penalty diminishes all involved in its delivery. Its abolition affirms human dignity, acknowledges the fallibility of all our judicial systems, and points to the progressive development of human rights. On the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration - with its central emphasis on the right to life and on the right to freedom from torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment - it is particularly fitting that the Commission should take a strong and clear stand on the issue.