For the kind attention of Ms. Ann-Marie NYROOS

Director of the Unit for Human Rights

Brussels, September 22, 1999

Dear Madame,

After the wonderfull statement of Mrs. Halonen, on behalf of the European Union, it is clear that the battle for the presentation of a EU resolution at the UN General Assembly on the abolition of the death penalty has now started. Thanks to the determination of the Finnish Presidency of the EU and, I am sure, to your personal efforts.

As you might also have already noticed from the verbatim report of proceedings of the last session of the European Parliament, during the dialogue that I had the pleasure to have with the representative of the Council, Mr. Sasi, a fundamental point that remains open is that of the text of the resolution and namely the insertion of an agenda with political-institutional deadlines and mechanisms as definite as possible.

I therefore allow myself to submit to your attention two proposals of "amendment" that could give a concrete answer to the worries above.

The first amendment, to be inserted at the beginning of the resolution, could be written as follows:

"in the framework of the initiatives of the International Community for the institution of a worldwide moratorium on capital executions". This sentence would allow to insert the concept of a worldwide moratorium without meeting, at this stage, juridical obstacles.

The second amendment, to be ideally inserted at the end of the resolution could be written as follows:

"request the nomination of a special rapporteur charged of monitoring of the implementation of the contents of the resolution and make proposals before the next UN General Assembly concerning adequate instruments and actions for the implementation of the present resolution".

In the hope of achieving the best possible result, and thanking you for your very concrete involvment, I send you my best regards.

Olivier Dupuis

tel 0032-2-284.51.98

fax 0032-2-284.91.98