ABSTRACT: During the Congress - which set up a Commission for the abolition of the death penalty, chaired jointly by Giyorgy Marianovic, a Macedonian jurist, and Paolo Pietrosanti, member of the Radical Party Federal Council, with Sergio D'Elia, also a member of the Federal Council, as rapporteur - a Convention was held to found the "International League for the Abolition of the Death Penalty by the Year 2000", which already has supporters in many countries throughout the world.

(THE NEW PARTY, MARCH 1993)

Parliamentarians, jurists and well-known cultural personalities from all over the world attended the Convention, including: Elena Bonner Sacharova; Ramsey Clark, an American and former Justice Minister in the Johnson Administration; François Fejto, historian; Lindsay Kemp, member of the Radical Party; Brian Philips, member of the international secretariat of Amnesty International, and Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Irish Nobel Peace Prize Winner. Mikhail Gorbachev and Giulio Andreotti both sent messages, pledging their support to the "Campaign".

The task of the "International League" is that of organizing, by mobilizing activists outside the various Parliaments and informing public opinion, the presentation of an identical bill or resolution "at the same time on the same day", which will gradually establish the political and civil right not to be killed.

The Convention brought forth the proposal to hold the first congress within a year, and resulted in the setting up of a committee to both promote and coordinate the activities of the "International League", whose members include: Sami Abid, representative of the Constitutional Democratic Students (Tunisia); Adelaide Aglietta, Joint Leader of the Green Group in the European Parliament (Italy); Nikolaj Arzhannikov, Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Human Rights; Juri Brezukhov, Chairman of the Russian Parliamentary Legislative Committee; Liliana Cavani, film director (Italy); Piero Dorazio, painter (Italy); Samir Labidi, jurist, President of the Student's Union (Tunisia); Tiziana Maiolo, MP elected on the "Rifondazione Comunista" ticket (Italy); Luigi Manconi, sociologist (Italy); Gyorgy Marianovic, jurist and chairman of the League for Democracy (Republic of Macedonia); Rino Nicolosi, Christian Democrat deputy (Italy); Marco Pannella, Euro MP (Italy); Alfonso Pecoraro, member of the Green Par

ty and MP (Italy); Claudio Petruccioli, MP and member of the Democratic Party of the Left (Italy); Claudio Piersanti, writer (Italy); Rev. Cyril Pillay, South African MP; Franco Piro, Socialist MP (Italy); Anatolj Pristavkin, Chairman of the Committee for Pardon (Russia); Martin Guillermo Ramirez, Secretary for International Politics of the Young Socialists (Spain); Francesco Rutelli, Leader of the Green Group in the Italian Parliament; Dennis Sammut, Secretary of POPEM (Organization for Peace between European and Mediterranean Peoples) (Malta), and Sandro Veronesi, writer (Italy).