The death penalty

Global abolition of the death penalty is a priority for the Government. We

oppose the death penalty because we consider that its use undermines
human dignity, that there is no conclusive evidence of its deterrent value, and
that any miscarriage of justice leading to its imposition is irreversible and
irreparable.

The Government publicly launched its strategy for the abolition of the death
penalty in October, to coincide with the World Day Against the Death Penalty
and the European Day against the Death Penalty. The strategy sets out our
policy on the death penalty and provides guidance to our embassies and high
commissions on how they can support our efforts to:

• increase the number of abolitionist countries, or countries with a

moratorium on the use of the death penalty;
• restrict the use of the death penalty in retentionist countries and reduce
the numbers of executions; and
• ensure EU minimum standards are met in retentionist countries.

Our strategy also identifies those countries and regions where our embassies
and high commissions have been specifically tasked to implement the
strategy. We focus our efforts where we believe that we can achieve real
results. We have selected our five priority countries/regions for a number of
reasons: China is the most prolific user of the death penalty; Iran continues
to use the death penalty for juvenile offenders and is second only to China in
the overall number of executions; Belarus is the last country in Europe that
retains this sanction; in the Caribbean, although the number of executions is
low, every English-speaking country retains the death penalty on its books;
and abolition in the US would send an important signal to the rest of the world.

There have been some positive developments in 2010. Mongolia introduced

a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in January; Kyrgyzstan
acceded to the 2nd Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights which aims for abolition of the death penalty; and Guyana
ended the mandatory death penalty for most categories of murder. But there
have also been setbacks. Both South Korea and Singapore ruled the
mandatory death penalty to be constitutional, after unsuccessful legal
challenges; Taiwan broke its five-year de-facto moratorium by executing four
death row inmates; and the prime minister of Mauritius announced his
intention to reintroduce the death penalty.

In 2010 we funded project work in the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and the Middle
East. We also funded the Death Penalty Project, an NGO with which we work
closely. Its work in 2010 on the case of Godfrey Mutiso led to the mandatory
death penalty being ruled unconstitutional in Kenya, following similar work
which led to the 2009 ruling in Uganda that the mandatory death penalty was
unconstitutional, resulting in 167 death sentences being commuted to life
imprisonment. The Death Penalty Project also ran a successful workshop in
Barbados, bringing together legal experts from across the Caribbean to
consider the issues and challenges that need to be addressed in order to
further restrict the death penalty in the region.

In China we provided capacity building for legislative reform. A revision to

China’s criminal code in 2011 is likely to reduce the number of capital crimes
from 68 to 55. This will be implemented by a restructuring of the criminal
punishment system. In addition, on 1 July China introduced new evidence
guidance on death penalty cases. Along with the EU, we are the main foreign
donor working closely with the Chinese authorities on reform and eventual
abolition of the death penalty. We also fund two death penalty-related
projects as part of a wider EU programme.

The UN plays an important role in creating momentum towards global

abolition. In December we co-sponsored the cross-regional UN General
Assembly resolution on the Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty and
lobbied actively for support. This resolution calls upon states to establish a
moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty. The
steady increase of support for this resolution, previously adopted in 2007 and
2008, reinforces the international trend towards global abolition. We lobbied
Mongolia and Gambia, both of which voted to support the resolution for the
first time. We also raised our concerns about the death penalty during the
Universal Periodic Review process in the UN Human Rights Council,
including, for example, recommending to the US that it establish a moratorium
on the use of the death penalty at the federal and state level as a first step
towards abolition.

Bilaterally we raised the death penalty directly with governments in a number

of countries and regions, including China, the US, the Caribbean and Japan.
Where a UK national faces the death penalty abroad, we use all appropriate
influence to prevent their execution. We also work with the EU to lobby other
governments and to raise individual cases of third country nationals facing the
death penalty.