Puerto Rico

World Coalition Steering Committee member

Colegio de Abogados y Abogadas de Puerto Rico

The Puerto Rico Bar Association (Colegio de Abogados y Abogadas de Puerto Rico) represents all the attorneys in Puerto Rico, and has historically taken a very active role in the public debate.

Since 2006 the Bar Association has been part of the World Coalition under the umbrella of the Puertorican Coalition Against the Death Penalty, a group of various Puertorican organisations which oppose the death penalty.

The federal death penalty is highly controversial in Puerto Rico. Local authorities prohibited capital punishment in 1929, and by constitutional mandate in 1952. However, given Puerto Rico’s relationship with the United States, it is subject to American federal law, and therefore to capital cases.

Given the Bar Association’s constitutional mandate, and to deal with the federal death penalty, the Bar created the Committee Against the Death Penalty. The problem was not only legal, but also social, so the Bar helped establish the Puerto Rican Coalition Against the Death Penalty.
The Puerto Rican Coalition now includes civic, religious and labour groups (even the state prosecutors’ association).
In 2008, the Coalition was given the Lighting the Torch award by the American National Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

Date founded

1840             

Structure type

Bar Association             

World Coalition Steering Committee member

Contact informations

PO BOX 9021
Miramar, Puerto Rico 00902
00902-1900 San Juan
Puerto Rico
Phone (787) 721-3358

Resources

Document(s)

The death penalty and the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

on 21 August 2021


2021

NGO report

World Coalition

Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment

fr
More details See the document

The signatory organizations are convinced that the death penalty is incompatible with the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, which is a peremptory norm of international law (jus cogens) and should thus be abolished. The death penalty is only tolerated by international law and standards to the extent that it may only be imposed for the most serious crimes and applied in a way that causes the least possible suffering. However, the signatory organizations believe that from the sentencing to the execution, the death penalty inevitably causes physical harm and psychological suffering amounting to torture or ill-treatments.

The present position paper documents the extent to which international and regional organisation have already recognised a violation of the absolution prohibitionof torture in the application and imposition of the death penalty.

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