HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS APPEALS TO NATIONAL AND STATE AUTHORITIES IN THE UNITED STATES TO STOP THE EXECUTION OF SEAN SELLERS

HR/99/7
3 February 1999




The following statement was made today by High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson:

“The state of Oklahoma in the United States is preparing to execute Sean Sellers, sentenced to death in 1986 for a crime he committed when he was 16 years old and suffering from various mental disorders. The execution of Mr. Sellers would, I believe, run counter to established international principles and to the international community’s expressed desire for the abolition of the death penalty.

In 1984, the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations adopted the Safeguards Guaranteeing Protection of the Rights of Those Facing the Death Penalty. 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, and that the death penalty shall not be carried out on persons with mental disorders. Meanwhile, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the United States signed in 1995, stipulates that capital punishment shall not be imposed for offences committed by persons below 18. 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.

The spirit of the Convention is very much in our minds this year as we mark its tenth anniversary. The eve of the millennium will see renewed international efforts to strengthen the treaty to further protect children against participation in armed conflict and sexual exploitation. This should also be a year to reaffirm the international principles that apply to juvenile offenders.

I acknowledge the seriousness of Mr. Sellers’ crimes, and feel the deepest sympathy for the victims and their family. But I must reiterate my views on the death penalty, which are reflected in the opening declaration of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. “...abolition of the death penalty contributes to enhancement of human dignity and progressive development of human rights”.

It is in this spirit that I appeal again to the authorities of the United States and of the state of Oklahoma to stop the execution of Mr. Sellers. The killing of one or more individuals cannot be used to justify killing another.”