ABSTRACT: Seven years after the first movement for the abolition of slavery was founded in England, in 1787, slavery was abolished in the French Colonies with the Convention. While enslavement was condemned in Europe between 1800 and 1875, Islamized regions in Africa still continued with their slave trading. This inhuman practice was abolished in the Northern U.S. at the beginning of the nineteenth century; neverthless, 350,000 white families in the Southern U.S. still owned 3,000,000 slaves in 1860. Five years later, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery once and for all. How many centuries will it take us to abolish the death penalty?

(THE PARTY new, N. 11, 27 july 1993)

Promoting a new individual right

A petition addressed to the United Nations, distributed with the previous issue of this newspaper, and signed by 50,000 citizens, Nobel Laureates, parliamentarians and prominent figures in cultural and scientific circles throughout the world, requests that the World Body take immediate action to affirm the "right not to be killed", as a new, fundamental right of the individual. At the dawn of the new millennium, we want to see the right not to be killed following a legal sentence or judicial measure - even if issued in respect of the law - affirmed worldwide, and written in the fundamental documents of the International Community and each individual country.

Our aim is to have a UN Resolution passed to this effect. However, we do not want this Resolution to be of a generic or minimalist nature like so many others regarding the death penalty, which were approved but never enforced. In this sense, we are totally in favour of Resolution No. 827, passed by the Security Council on 25 May 1993, which establishes that the death penalty cannot be inflicted by the ad hoc Court to prosecute war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia: how can the death penalty possibly be considered legitimate in any country, when the International Community (of which that country is a member) totally excludes this form of punishment for serious war crimes, and for genocide itself?

This step forward, even though it was achieved "indirectly, has encouraged us to launch a more specific initiative: the presentation of jointly-inspired bills with common aims - accompanied by actions to awaken public opinion and the media - at the same time and on the same day in as many different parliaments as possible, which commit the respective Governments to promote this new individual right at the United Nations.

Another way of successfully achieving our aim would be for everyone to commit themselves to establishing an international "consuetude" which makes it legally impossible for a country to dispose of the life of any one of its citizens, even if found guilty of the most serious crime: a concept which would form the basis for international humanitarian law. This kind of law, which could be created by a large number of countries committing themselves to international conventions, would prevail over conflicting national laws.

Several lines of action have already emerged in this campaign:

1) The U.S. plays an important international role and it is, therefore, crucial that we conduct our abolitionist campaign on this front. It is necessary to put the Clinton Administration to the test by trying to obtain a three-to five-year moratorium on executions and the ratification of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, which lays down strict limitations concerning the execution of minors, pregnant women and mentally-handicapped persons.

2) A death penalty-free Europe could be an intermediate goal to be achieved by 1995/96. In this sense, we must direct the initiative towards the countries of the former Soviet Union, the Baltic States, Russia and Bulgaria, which have already presented death penalty-related bills in parliament.

3) The Committee to Abolish the Death Penalty in Mediterranean Countries was set up at the Seminar held by the POPEM (Organization for Peace between the Peoples of Europe and the Mediterranean) in Tunisia, on 16 November 1992. This same Committe is presently organizing an important Convention that will be attended by the Arab countries and the countries of the Mediterranean. A similar initiative could be undertaken in Africa by 1994.

4) There is an urgent need to establish a dialogue with the Vatican, especially as the New Catechism of the Catholic Church contains a thesis on the legitimacy of the death penalty. We could begin by going on an abolitionist march to St. Peter's next Easter.

5) Lastly, a Convention to found the International League for the Abolition of the Death Penalty by 200 was held during the Radical Party Congress, which took place in Rome last February. A Promoting Committee was appointed, whose primary objective is to summon a World Congress to officially found the International League within one year. The League itself could be the perfect instrument for extending and developing the entire abolitionist campaign.