EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: FOR AN INITIATIVE OF THE UNION IN FAVOUR OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A UNIVERSAL MORATORIUM ON CAPITAL EXECUTIONS AT THE NEXT UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY.
Strasbourg, 7 May, 1999. The European Parliament has adopted today unanimously an urgent resolution asking the European Union to become the promoter of a resolution establishing a universal moratorium on capital executions at the next United Nations General Assembly.
The resolution "emphasizes that the approval, for three consecutive years, of a resolution advocating the abolition of the death penalty by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights as well as its sponsorship of increasing number of countries, constitutes the premises for the establishment of a principle of international law which has to be now affirmed by the United Nations General Assembly" and "requests the Council to charge the next Finish Presidency to table on behalf of the Union, before the 20 August this year, a formal request for inscription of the question of a universal moratorium on capital executions on the agenda of the United Nations General Assembly and to undertake all the initiatives in this sense".
Declaration of Olivier Dupuis, Secretary General of the Radical Party and Member of European Parliament:
"Through this resolution, the Parliament intended particularly to indicate to the Council that the time has advanced now to carry on this autumn the battle in favour of the establishment of a universal moratorium on capital executions at the United Nations General Assembly.
The increased number of abolitionist countries - more than 100 today - as well as the success obtained at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in the last years, do not actually leave any doubt about the result of a vote in the General Assembly. We hope that the Council will be able to transform the will, constantly reiterated by the Parliament and by numerous European citizens in favour of the establishment of this new princliple of international law, into concrete political initiative."
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