Rev. Danny Fisher

Yesterday, the U.N. General Assembly passed a nonbinding resolution calling for “a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.” This is a powerful statement by the international community.

[The resolution] was passed by a 104 to 54 vote, with 29 abstentions.

[...]

Two similar moves in the 1990s failed in the assembly. The resolution’s text stops short of an outright demand for immediate abolition; it carries no legal force but backers say it has powerful moral authority.

I’m sorry to have to report that my own country, the United States of America, was among those that voted against the resolution.

In an opinion piece for today’s Los Angeles Times, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour writes:

According to Amnesty International, no fewer than 133 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. And that trend continues. Last July, Rwanda, a country that has suffered the ultimate crime of genocide and whose people’s thirst for justice is far from quenched, decided to forgo the sanction of capital punishment. In so doing, Rwanda has given a powerful endorsement of the importance of pursuing justice while repudiating violence to attain it.

Despite these developments, and despite the fact that a small group of countries–China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan and the United States–reportedly accounted for 91% of the executions in 2006, the death penalty is practiced in too many places. Regrettably, some nations that had effectively applied a moratorium on executions, such as Afghanistan, have recently resumed them–despite serious doubts about the death penalty’s supposed deterrent effect on criminality, despite the danger of errors in its application and despite the irreparable consequences of such errors.

On this note, please take a few moments to watch the below video from Amnesty International, in which Academy Award-winning actor Jeremy Irons elucidates the arguments against capital punishment.