Brasilia accedes to the UN’s protocol on the abolition of the death penalty
Protocol
Brazil’s permanent representative to the United Nations Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti (photo, left) has handed the UN the documents stating her country’s accession to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The South-American giant is the 72th state party to the treaty, which states: “No one within the jurisdiction of a State Party to the present Protocol shall be executed. Each State Party shall take all necessary measures to abolish the death penalty within its jurisdiction.”
However, Brazil chose to express a reservation to its accession as permitted under article 2 of the text, which allows “the application of the death penalty in time of war pursuant to a conviction for a most serious crime of a military nature committed during wartime”.
The Protocol does not offer state parties the possibility to opt out. It therefore makes the abolition of the death penalty final and definitive.
On October 21, 2009, the World Coalition will lauch a campaign aiming to increase the number of ratifications of that key piece of international legislation.
Photo: UN
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