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Moratorium on the death penalty
January 30, 2007 12:00 AM
By Sarah Ludford MEP in European Parliament
By Sarah Ludford MEP in European Parliament
Sarah Ludford (ALDE). - Madam President, worldwide, 20 000 people are on death row waiting to be killed by their own governments. Sadly, over 3000 of these are in the United States. I do not single the US out because it is the worst - that is China, with 80% of executions - but because we have hope of the Americans. The great prize would be for a change of mind in the United States and the signs are there. The number of executions in the states of the US has dropped dramatically since 1999: there were 277 in that year, and 128 in 2005. Twelve states have now abolished the death penalty, not including Texas, which clocks up an unimpressive one-third of the 1100 executions in the US in the last 30 years.
I think the Commission and the Presidency need to be more proactive and less hesitant in seeking a moratorium and abolition worldwide through a UN General Assembly resolution. As in some other areas of human rights policy, like extraordinary rendition and war-on-terror abuses, the EU is not always as effective in putting its principles into practice as Parliament would wish.
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