ABSTRACT: Document on the death penalty prepared for the 36th Congress of the Radical Party (Rome, Hotel Ergife, 30 April - 3 May)

The following document gives an account of the work on the death penalty carried out during recent weeks by a group coordinated by Sergio D'Elia in which the following have taken part: Giandonato Caggiano, Luca Frassineti, Tomaso Staiti di Cuddia, Elisabetta Zamparutti, Basile Guissou, Gaoussou Ouattara and Antonio Marchesi. Sergio Stanzani made a very useful and important contribution to various meetings regarding the action and objectives we wish to achieve. It was Adelaide Aglietta whose work at the European Parliament led to the approval of a Resolution on the death penalty.

Below are some of the papers for the Congress Committe and a series of notes, considerations, arguments and proposals of objectives that we would like dealt with in the Committee.

We especially beg those who are the points of reference of of organized headquarters and situations, institutions and political initiatives, parliamentarians and Radical Party members to take part in the committtee and bring pertinent contributions, and proposals of objectives for our campaign, taking into account the possibilities and specific features, characteristics and resources of the Radical Party organization.

"DEATH PENALTY" COMMITTEE: REPORTS, COMUNIQUES, FACTUAL ACCOUNTS

We have planned for the 36th Congress a political committee to develop a calendar-project for "the world parliamentary campaign for the abolition of the death penalty by the year 2000", through the setting up and organization of a "World Parliamentary League" capable of fighting this battle.

The work of the committee involves papers, reports, comuniqués and factual accounts on:

- the possibility of an amendment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or an ad hoc declaration of the United nations that establishes the right of every human being not to be killed following a court sentence or legal measure, even if it is issued in accordance with the law;

- strategies for the increased participation of states in international abolitionist treaties, to promote the establishment of an international practice that bans the death penalty as the violation of a fundamental human right. This is to be implemented via campaigns and actions that address public opinion, the relative sectors and national parliamentarians of the countries that enjoy the greatest international prestige and have a long-established legal system;

- powers of intervention in the United Nations and human rights, with the aim of establishing the sanction of the death penalty as a "gross violation". Vertical organization

of the international community in the Lockerbie case and the gradual subtraction of powers from the jurisdiction of national lawcourts, also in the form of moratoriums imposed by the Security Council. The establishment of an international penal jurisdiction in particular vital and disturbing matters of international concern (international drug and arms traffic); particular categories of criminals (minors, pregnant women, the mentally handicapped); particular situations (crimes connected with coups d'état).

(paper by Prof Giandonato CAGGIANO, Professor of International Law at the Istituto Universitario Orientale, Naples, Scientific Head of the Italian Society for International Organization);

- international measures of control (in the system of the United Nations and in international conventions) aimed at guaranteeing the respect and aplication of human rights in the UN member states and the contracting parties (countries); with special reference to the regulations that impose the abolition of the death penalty. An hypothesis for a reform of the United Nations (written report by Ugo VILLANI, university lecturer specialized in human rights; speech by Dr. Antonio CARUSO, researcher in international law);

- the Resolution of the European Parliament against the death penalty, approved on 12 March 1992 (by Adelaide AGLIETTA, leader of the Green Group at the European Parliament and member of the Radical Party Federal Council);

- United States; segregation in "death rows", gas chamber and electric chair, the execution of minors, mentally handicapped, pregnant women, forbidden by many of the states supporting it and on which there is already a principle of international consuetude to be respected. Abolitionist organizations and strategies (Gore VIDAL, writer);

- human rights and the death penalty in Russia and in the Republics of the ex-Soviet Union (Nikolai Arzannikov, President of the Russian Republic Human Rights Commission);

- the promotion of regional agreements against the death penalty in Africa (Basile GUISSOU, former Foreign Minister of Burkina Faso) (speech and written report)

- relations between the campaign against the death penalty and information systems;

- the organization of Amnesty International, individual strategies, country by country, the weak links in the chain of supporting countries (Antonio MARCHESI, Italian President of A.I.) (speech and written report);

- the Ukraine: the Radical Party campaign starting from the Makoveckij Oleg Nikolajevich case (Nikolaj KHRAMOV).

- Cuba (Orlando GUTIERREZ, Cuban exile in Miami, Secretary of the "Directorio Revolucionario Democratico").

Speakers:

- Francis WODIE', deputy, Secretary General of the Ivory Coast Workers' Party;

- Mohamed ADEN SHEIKH, former Somalian minister, imprisoned several times by the Siad Barre regime;

- Calixto NAVARRO, Cuban exile in Miami, Secretary for International Relations of the "Directorio Revolucionario Democratico".

- Dennis SAMMUT, Labour Paty member of the Malta Parliament, Secretary General of the Peoples of Europe and the Mediterranean Peace Organization ("Possible actions for the abolition of the death penalty in the Mediterranean countries in which it still remains a common practice");

- Pascal KOFFI TEYA, Ivory Coast (currently living in Italy), journalist;

- Marino BUSDACHIN, member of the Radical Party Federal Council (The campaign for the abolition of the death penalty in the Republics of the ex-Soviet Union: proposals for parliamentary action and nonviolent initiatives);

- Andreij ROSCIN, university student, Russia.

- Luca FRASSINETI, political prisoner, ex-member of "Prima Linea", Italy.

- Elisabetta ZAMPARUTTI, researcher, Italy.

- Gaoussou OUATTARA, member of the Radical Party Federal Council, Ivory Coast.

CONSIDERATIONS, ARGUMENTS, POSSIBLE OBJECTIVES AND DEADLINES FOR THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE ABOLITION OF THE DEATH PENALTY.

Considerations:

- The death penalty is still provided for in law in 143 states of the international community out of 187 ( in 127 for common crimes and in 16 only for exceptional crimes), even though it is carried out in 106 countries, many of which are democratic;

- according to Amnesty International figures, in 1991, 2,086 prisoners were executed in 32 countries and 2,703 death sentences were passed in 62 countries;

- in the United States, legislation in 36 states provides for the death penalty, in 24 of these also for minors; there are 2,547 prisoners awaiting execution, 32 of whom are minors; those condemned to death are inhumanly segregated for years in "death rows" before being executed, in some cases via execution practices that involve a long drawn out agony, such as the electric chair or the gas chamber; executions take place in circumstances explicitly excluded by the international conventions on human rights, for example, as regards minors, pregnant women and the mentally handicapped; circumstances that are also excluded by the majority of supporting countries;

- in the ex-USSR countries, there were 208 executions in 1990, nearly all in the Russian republic and the Ukraine, where 80 are still awaiting execution, while the reduction from 18 to 5 crimes for which the death penalty is allowed, decreed in July 1991 by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, has been accepted, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, only by some of the republics that today constitute the Commonwealth of Independent States;

- Africa is the place where the practice of the death penalty and torture is more widespread and systematic and despite recent trends towards its abolition, it still remains the place where life and justice are least respected;

- in the European Community, Greece and Belgium still have the death penalty for common crimes, even if these two states have not in effect resorted to it for some decades, whereas Italy, Belgium, Greece, Spain and the United Kingdom provide for the death penalty in the case of exceptional crimes, moreover, Belgium, Greece, Ireland and the United Kingdom have not yet signed or ratified the additional IV Protocol to the European Convention of Human Rights or the 2nd optional Protocol of the International Pact on Civil and Poilitical Rights;

- the following member states of the Council of Europe still have the death penalty: Cyprus, Malta and Switzerland for exceptional crimes, Turkey and Poland for ordinary and exceptional crimes, and the member states of the CSCE, Bulgaria, the United States, the Commonwealth of Independent States (except Georgia), ex-Yugoslavia, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Albania.

Political arguments, fundamental principles:

- the right of every human being not to be killed following a court sentence or legal measure, aven if it is issued in accordance with the law, must be established unambiguously as a new personal right, at the highest level, with a United Nations Declaration;

- the commitment to work for the aboliton of the death penalty wherever it is provided for and practised, also via the legal establishment of the principle "No extradiction from states that have abolished the death penalty!" or by imposing a foreign policy and especially a policy of agreements and cooperation that fully respects human rights and especially the abolition of the death penalty as a fundamental condition and diriment to be taken into account, can become an obligation of interference;

- the path to choose cannot and must not be the "prohibitionist", "negative" path, but that of a rigorous and progressive regulation that takes into account the different historical, cultural, legislative situations and customs, on which to base the implementation of the new individual right established;

- the extension of participation in treaties that forbid or limit the death penalty, especially to countries that enjoy the greatest world prestige and have a long-established legal system, can promote the establishment of an international consuetude that bans the death penalty as a violation of a fundamental human right, a regulation that would be binding for all states and would prevail, according to international law, over contrastive internal law;

- the abolition of the death penalty in the countries of the ex-Soviet Union can represent for countries with a long-established democracy an example of tollerance and legal civilization with which the latter can but compare themselves;

- the Resolutions of the UN Security Council on the Lockerbie disaster, mark a turning point in the field of international cooperation on penal law and interference in the internal affairs of the member states of the United Nations, and appear as an instance of international jurisdiction at least over some behaviours, matter and categories of individuals or accused;

- the establishment of this real penal right, with the gradual subtraction of powers from the jurisdiction of national lawcourts, can gradually eliminate the provision for and application of the sanction of the death penalty, also via moratoriums imposed by the Security Council; can be applied, for example, to vital and disturbing international matters (international drug and arms traffic), particular categories of criminals (minors, pregant women, mentally handicapped), particular situations (crimes connected with coups d'état); can be connected with ad hoc protocols to the International Conventions in force (for example the international Convention on minors);

- the Resolution of the European Parliament (presented by Adelaide Aglietta) approved on 12 March 1992, constitutes an important means of establishing a principle, of the possibility of interfernce, of foreign policy, at the disposal of governments and parliaments and of democratic militants for the abolition of the death penalty;

- the appeal for the abolition of the death penalty in the ex-USSR which was supported by over 620 parliamentarians and statesmen and over 200 international personalities, the mobilization against the death penalty in Cuba and that taking place in the Ukraine, are the first example of organized, democratic nonviolent action.

Proposed initiatives and objectives:

1) presentation to Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kravchuk, and to the Presidents of the Republics of the former Soviet Union, of more than 1,000 signatures collected by the Radical Party, as part of its campaign to abolish the death penalty in the former Soviet Union, by a delegation composed of the parliamentarians and statesmen, men of culture and science, and Nobel prizewinners who signed the petition.

2)

- a powerful campaign of parliamentary action and democraticmobilization of the general public, based on the text of the law, motion or resolution which will be presented simultaneously by elected representatives and statesmen who are members of the Radical Party, and by the signees of the August petition, in the legislative assemblies or seats of government of various countries, and also organizing the mobilization of nonviolent activists, and informing the public in said countries.

- proposal of texts and mobilization regarding the above action, above all, within and outside the parliaments and governments of the member countries of the European Community which have still not abolished the death penalty or those which, having abolished it, have not yet signed or ratified either the VI Protocol of the European Agreement for Human Rights or the II optional Protocol of the International Agreement for Political and Civil Rights;

- directing, or proposing, these same texts or nonviolent initiatives to the members of the European Council and the CSCE which still enforce the death penalty;

- action directed at various national governments so that at the Conference for the revision of the Helsinki Agreements which is currently being held and will terminate at the end of July, an amendment, or a new item, might be included in the document which will be produced, that will include a commitment to abolish the death penalty in the countries of the CSCE.

3) first international parliamentary Congress to organize the "Campaign to Abolish the Death Penalty before 2000" and the founding of an appropriate League. This Congress could be held in Rome during Easter '93, and end with a huge demonstration in which people would march across Rome to St. Peter's, to arrive just before the world vision broadcast of the Pope's Easter message begins; or it could be held on occasion of the International Conference for Human Rights that the UN intends to hold in Rome in 1993;

4) completion of all the necessary procedures at the UN to have the Radical Party recognized as a non-governmental international organization for the defence of human rights, so that it might act as consultant to the Economic and Social Council of the UN;

5) action directed at the UN, undertaken via the European Parliament, national parliaments and governments - bearing in mind also the Maastricht Treaty and the new powers of the European Union as regards the administration of justice - and with the support of jurists and non-governmental organizations and associations for human rights, and international foundations, and also via a conference and plan of action, with the aim of:

- obtaining a resolution for a moratorium concerning executions, limitations of the application of the death penalty ( for example, making minors, pregnant women, old people, the mentally-handicapped and others, exempt) and guarantees of fair trials for the accused.

- promoting and setting up within the framework of the UN a form of international law court which will occupy itself with certain types of criminal behaviour and crime, and categories of individuals or accused, on behalf of whom the Security Council could, for example, intervene in order to ensure them a fair trial, to issue a moratorium that would delay executions for six months, a year, and to make certain that these people are respected, at the risk of a negative international reaction or even sanctions being imposed;

6) an information offensive directed at the public, and denouncements made to the European Parliament, and national parliaments and governments, with the aim of:

- bringing before the Commission for Human Rights at the UN, on the basis of Procedure 1503 of 1970, and on the grounds of "gross violation", the practice of those American States who isolate the condemned in "Death Rows" for years, utilize gas chambers, the electric chair or other equally cruel means of execution, and put minors, pregnant women and the mentally-handicapped to death;

- to obtain from the Commission for Human Rights the nomination of a "special rapporteur" for the question of the "death penalty and human rights";

7) An important conference in Africa for parliamentarians, statesmen, party representatives, jurists, intellectuals, activists from associations for the defence of human rights, at which an abolitionist action could be organized, aimed at promoting a protocol which would strengthen and make more effective and independent of the governments' will the system of guarantees and controls governing the African Charter for Human Rights, and promoting a regional accord in Africa, starting with the abolitionist countries de jure (Cape Verde, Sao Tomè and Principe, Namibia, Mozambique) and those that have not carried out the death sentence for at least ten years (Comoro Islands, Ivory Coast, Jibuti, Madagascar, Niger, Senegal, Togo).