Should The Death Penalty Should Be An Exceptional Measure?

The UN Human Rights Committee (the UN body whose interpretations of the ICCPR are considered authoritative) discussed Article 6 of the ICCPR in detail in its General Comment in 1982. The Committee clarified that while the ICCPR did not explicitly require the abolition of the death penalty, abolition was desirable, and the Committee would consider any move towards abolition as “progress in the enjoyment of the right to life.” The Committee also said that death penalty should be an “exceptional measure”. It reiterated important procedural safeguards including that the death penalty can only be imposed in accordance with the law in force at the time of the commission of the crime, and that the right to a fair hearing by an independent tribunal,
For example, in 2014, it recommended that Sierra Leone “should expedite its efforts to abolish the death penalty and to ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant”, UN Human Rights Committee, Concluding observations on the initial report of Sierra Leone. In 2009, it noted that while Russia had a de facto moratorium on executions since 1996, it “should take the necessary measures to abolish the death penalty de jure at the earliest possible moment, and consider acceding to the Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant” . In other cases, the Committee has also reiterated the importance of following the safeguards listed in Article 6 and other provisions of the ICCPR, and provided a roadmap to
The Convention against Torture and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
Increasingly, there is an analysis of the death penalty as violating norms against torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment. In this context, the Convention against Torture and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (‘the Torture Convention’) and the UN Committee against Torture have been sources of jurisprudence for limitations on the death penalty as well as necessary safeguards. The Torture Convention does not regard the imposition of death penalty per se as a form of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (‘CIDT’). However, some methods of execution and the phenomenon of death row have been seen as forms of CIDT by UN bodies. While India has signed the Torture Convention, it has yet not ratified it.
e. International Criminal