JOINT ASSEMBLY OF THE CONVENTION CONCLUED BETWEEN THE AFRICAN, CARIBBEAN AND PACIFIC STATES AND THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY (ACP-EC)

RESOLUTION () on the abolition of the death penalty

The ACP-EU Joint Assembly,

- meeting in Luxembourg from 23 to 26 September 1996,

A. deploring the fact that more than half the States bound by the ACP-EU Convention impose the death penalty, in certain situations, in the absence of legal guarantees,

B. whereas only 27 Member States of the Lomé Convention have totally abolished the death penalty,

C. concerned by the upsurge in the use of the death penalty, including in countries which had not carried out executions for over ten years,

D. regretting that many countries, even democracies, impose the death penalty in circumstances precluded by international human rights conventions (minors, mental illnesses etc.),

E. whereas no State, and especially no democratic State, may decide people's fates by prescribing in its legal codes the death penalty for offences, even very serious ones,

1. Reaffirms its absolute opposition to the death penalty;

2. Requests the Member States of the Lomé Convention in which the death penalty is still in force to decide to introduce a three-year moratorium as the first step towards abolitionist legislation;

3. Requests the States bound by the ACP-EU Convention which still impose the death penalty for exceptional crimes or which no longer impose it in practice to take the measures necessary to introduce abolitionist legislation for all crimes;

4. Invites the Member countries which are signatories to the Lomé Convention to support in the next meeting of the UN General Assembly the proposal for a universal moratorium on capital punishment on the basis of the right of every human being not to be killed in consequence of a judicial sentence;

5. Instructs its Co-Presidents to forward this resolution to the ACP-EU Council, the Commission and the Secretary-General of the UN.