HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE CONTINUES TO DISCUSS DRAFT GENERAL COMMENT ON THE RIGHT TO LIFE

The Human Rights Committee continued this afternoon its public discussion on the draft General Comment on Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on the right to life. The Committee adopted draft paragraph 35 of the draft General Comment. It also adopted draft paragraphs 38, 39 and 40 of the draft General Comment in a first reading. They considered draft paragraphs 37 and 41 in a first reading and agreed to revisit then again at the following meeting.

Paragraph 35 barred States parties which had abolished the death penalty from reintroducing it. Paragraph 35 was adopted without debate in the first reading.

Paragraph 37 was an effort to define the regulation of the death penalty for States parties that still had it in place, namely by applying the “serious crimes” principle, notwithstanding the fact that States should eventually abolish the death penalty. It stated that the term “most serious crimes” had to be read restrictively and appertain to crimes of extreme gravity, such as those involving premediated murder or genocidal killings. Crimes not resulting directly and intentionally in death, such as drug offences, attempted murder, corruption, armed robbery, piracy, abduction, repeated evasion of compulsory military services and sexual offences, although serious in nature, did not manifest the extraordinary high levels of violence, utter disregard for human life. There was a discussion regarding the wording used, such as “irreversible consequences”, “limited degree of involvement”, and “intentional killing” rather than “substantiated murder”. An Expert stated that the inclusion of sexual offences in a list of less serious crimes was worrisome. Another one stated that, whereas sexual offence was a serious crime, such States such as India used the capital sentence for the crime of rape. There was disagreement regarding the term “genocidal killings” in English, which was simply “genocide” in French. An Expert stated that genocidal killing was serious and was not necessarily a premeditated murder. While some Experts were of the opinion that the crimes had to be spelled out, others were opposed. Thee Experts decided to revisit the paragraph at a further reading.

Paragraph 38 stated that “under no circumstances [could] the death penalty ever be applied as a sanction against conduct whose very criminalization violate[d] the Covenant, including adultery, homosexuality, apostasy establishing opposition groups, or insulting a head of state.” Some Experts were of the opinion that enumerating the crimes was not a good idea, because the list was never exhaustive. The Rapporteur explained that the list was not exhaustive, but rather illustrative. Furthermore, he explained that the nature of some provisions in the General Comment were based on jurisprudence. Also discussed was whether the term “opposition groups”, which should be replaced with “opposition parties.” The Committee had used the term “parties” in its Concluding Observations on Libya in 2007 on Libya. Another Expert stated that one case was not enough. Another Expert proposed the word “organized political opposition.” Some Experts stated that sometimes the opposition were bloggers or students, so not necessarily political parties or groups. Thus, “political opposition” was not an adequate term. The crime of “insulting a head of state” was also discussed, and Experts agreed to replace it with “offending a head of state.” The Committee adopted paragraph 38.

The Committee then moved on to paragraph 39, which stated that in countries where the death penalty was still applied, it should never be applied with a mandatory death sentence. After a slight discussion, the Committee amended and then adopted paragraph 39.

Paragraph 40 reminded States parties of their obligations under the Genocide Convention. Several Experts stated that they could not understand the French version of the first sentence of the paragraph. Others stated that the second sentence was difficult to understand. Following a discussion regarding the issues of genocide and the right to life, the Committee Experts decided to revisit the paragraph at a further reading.

The Committee then proceeded to discuss paragraph 41, which required States parties to ensure that any death sentence would be “in accordance with the law in force at the time of the commission of the crime.” An Expert had an issue with sentence 3, which allowed for the idea that re-introduction of the death penalty was possible. An Expert was not happy with the reference to Article 15, as she was doubtful that the Committee should give an impression that the lex mitior principle could be applied to all those who had already been convicted for any sentence. In other words, the sentence rendered the rationale weaker with regard to those who had already been convicted. Therefore ,the Expert suggested deleting the reference to Article 15, and/or deleting the last sentence of the paragraph. Others disagreed. The Experts decided to revisit the paragraph at a further reading.

The Committee then started discussing paragraph 42, which required that the application of the death penalty had to be consistent with Article 7 of the Covenant and gave a number of examples of situations where the death penalty would be in violation of Article 7. The discussion on that paragraph would continue the following meeting.


The Committee will next meet in public on Thursday, 16 March at 3 p.m. to continue its discussion on the draft General Comment No. 36 on Article 6 on the right to life.



For use of the information media; not an official record

CT17/010E