HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS APPEALS TO AUTHORITIES IN UNITED STATES TO STOP EXECUTION OF JUVENILE OFFENDER

HR/99/53
16 June 999

Moscow (16 June 1999) -- United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson appealed to the United States Government and to Virginia state authorities to stop today’s scheduled execution of Douglas Christopher Thomas and reaffirm the customary international law ban on the use of the death penalty on juvenile offenders.

Speaking after a visit to the Butyrka detention centre in Moscow, where a number of detainees should be taken out of death row following Russia’s recent suspension of the application of capital punishment, Mrs. Robinson said the execution of Mr. Thomas, convicted of murders committed when he was 17 years old, would run counter to established international principles.

She recalled that the United States has signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which stipulates that capital punishment shall not be imposed for offenses committed by persons below 18. “As I stated prior to the execution last February of Sean Sellers, although signing the Convention does not carry any positive obligation to implement its provisions, as a signatory the United States is nevertheless obliged not to violate the spirit and intent of the treaty”, she said.

The High Commissioner pointed to the “growing international movement against the death penalty”, exemplified by the Safeguards Guaranteeing Protection of the Rights of Those Facing the Death Penalty which the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations adopted in 1984. The Safeguards provide that persons below 18 years of age at the time of the commission of a crime shall not be sentenced to death. The international Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also bans the use of the death penalty on juvenile offenders, although the United States has lodged a reservation to that provision. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has declared this reservation to be contrary to the object and purpose of the treaty and called for its withdrawal.

“At a time when the international community is increasingly moving towards banning the death penalty altogether, as evidenced by Russia’s recent moratorium on capital punishment, it would be sad to see the United States go against accepted standards on the treatment of juvenile offenders by executing Mr. Thomas”, the High Commissioner said.

Mrs. Robinson emphasized that she acknowledged the seriousness of Mr.Thomas’ crimes, and she expressed sympathy for the family of his victims. But she said, echoing the opening declaration of the Second Optional Protocol of ICCPR “abolition of the death penalty contributes to the enhancement of human dignity and to the progressive development of human rights”.