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3rd World Congress Against the
Death Penalty
Paris, 1-3 February 2007
Final declaration of the 3rd
World Congress against the Death
Penalty
Assembled in Paris from 1 to 3
February 2007, on the initiative
of Ensemble contre la peine de
mort (Together against the Death
Penalty), supported by the World
Coalition against the Death
Penalty,
We, citizens and representatives
of civil society and public
authorities, meeting in even
greater number than at the first
two World Congresses against the
Death Penalty in Strasbourg in
2001 and Montreal in 2004, adopt
this Declaration at the
conclusion of discussions
involving some 30 debates as
well as testimonies, analyses
and exchanges of experiences and
strategies.
We welcome the fact that the
death penalty is receding in the
world and that since the
Montreal Congress Greece,
Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Mexico, the
Philippines and Senegal have
abolished capital punishment,
while no country has
re-introduced it. We regret that,
during the same period, some
countries have resumed
executions after prolonged
moratoria, such as Bahrain in
2006, and that the death penalty
is still applied on a large
scale in a number of countries
including China, Iran, Saudi
Arabia, the United States and
Vietnam. We strongly condemn the
initiatives in some abolitionist
countries to reintroduce the
death penalty and demand in
particular that the Peruvian
authorities renounce this effort.
We recognise that the process of
abolition must be accompanied by
a better consideration of the
needs of victims and by an
in-depth reflection on penal
policy and prison systems, in
the framework of an equitable
and restorative justice.
We demand with one voice the end
throughout the world of justice
that kills. No authority has the
right to strike out a person�s
life. We recall that the death
penalty is a cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment, that it is
contrary to human rights, that
it has no utility in the fight
against crime, and that it
always represents a failure of
justice.
The 3rd World Congress against
the Death Penalty adopts the
following recommendations:
1. We call on all countries to
abolish the death penalty and to
ratify international and
regional abolitionist treaties,
especially the Second Optional
Protocol to the UN International
Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights.
2. Following on from the
statement at the UN General
Assembly in December 2006, which
was supported by an
unprecedented number of
countries from around the world,
we solemnly appeal to all states
of the world to stop all
executions immediately.
Recognizing the great value that
a successful resolution adopted
by the UN General Assembly would
have for the abolition of the
death penalty worldwide, we
invite the member states of the
United Nations to take all
necessary steps to ensure the
adoption by the General Assembly
of a resolution
- calling for an immediate and
universal moratorium on death
sentences and executions and the
commutation of existing death
sentences, with a view to the
universal abolition of the death
penalty;
- recalling that the death
penalty violates human rights
and fundamental freedoms; and
- encouraging the UN, its member
states, and other relevant
international, regional and
sub-regional organisations to
support the implementation of
this moratorium, including
through mobilizing resources and
expertise.
We call on the citizens of the
world to sign the petition,
launched by the Sant�Egidio
Community and supported by the
World Coalition against Death
Penalty, which has already
attracted over five million
signatures, in favour of a
worldwide moratorium on
executions.
3. We welcome the presence in
Paris of many abolitionists from
North Africa and the Middle East
and their efforts to create
national, sub-regional and
regional coalitions. We hail the
initiatives taken in Morocco,
Lebanon and Jordan towards
abolition and call on the
countries of the region to
abolish the death penalty.
4. Welcoming the presence in
Paris of Chinese abolitionists,
we call on the Chinese
government, in the prospect of
the Beijing Olympic Games in
2008 and the Shanghai Universal
Exposition in 2010, to establish
an immediate moratorium on
executions with the objective of
progressively abolishing the
death penalty, and in particular
to remove non-violent offences,
including economic and drug
offences, from the scope of
capital punishment.
As, moreover, the Chinese
Supreme Court from 1 January
2007 is to review all death
sentences imposed by courts of
first instance, we call on the
Chinese authorities to remove
the secrecy surrounding the
administration of the death
penalty.
5. We welcome the fact that,
since the Strasbourg Congress in
2001, the world abolitionist
movement has structured itself,
with full respect for the
diversity of its members, around
the World Coalition against the
Death Penalty, which was created
in 2002 and now includes over 50
organisations.
We call on organisations and
institutions that share the
objective of abolition �
non-governmental organisations,
bar associations, trade unions
and local governments - to join
the World Coalition.
We call on abolitionists of the
whole world to take part each
year in the World Day against
the Death Penalty, which will
focus in 2007 on China in the
Prospect of the Olympic Games
and in 2008 on Teaching
Abolition. We call on all
regional and international
organisations, and the European
Union in particular, to adopt 10
October as an official day in
favour of universal abolition.
We call on the cities of the
world to take part in Cities for
Life on 30 November each year.
Finally, we call on members of
parliament of the whole world,
whose powers include that of
voting for abolition, to sign
this Declaration.
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