Overview
Since 1999, in accordance with its mandate, ODIHR has been monitoring developments regarding the death penalty in the OSCE area and reporting on the issue
annually at the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting. OSCE commitments do not require that participating States abolish the death penalty. The states
have, however, committed themselves to using the death penalty as punishment only
for the most serious crimes and in a manner not contrary to their international commitments, as well as to keeping the question of eliminating capital punishment under
consideration.1
This publication covers the period 1 July 2010 to 30 June 2011 and offers a concise
update that highlights only those changes in the status of the death penalty made
since the last Background Paper.2 Seeking to rely primarily on information provided
directly by OSCE participating States, ODIHR sent out a questionnaire on the use
of the death penalty in June 2011 to each of the six countries for which there were
entries in the 2010 Background Paper.3 Responses were received only from Belarus
and the United States. Additional information had, therefore, to be gathered from
other sources, such as OSCE field operations and reports by non-governmental actors
and the media.
While only minimal progress has been seen in participating States that have publicly committed to or are legally obliged to abolish capital punishment, there were,
nevertheless, some noteworthy developments. Illinois abolished the death penalty in
March 2011, becoming the 16th jurisdiction in the United States to take this step.
Kyrgyzstan, for its part, acceded to the Second Optional Protocol to the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which aims at the abolition of the death penalty. And, in October 2010, Spain established the International Commission Against
the Death Penalty, whose objectives include the universal abolition of capital punish-
1
OSCE Copenhagen Document, 1990, para. 17.8, see Annex 1.
2 For earlier developments, see “The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area, Background Paper 2001”, OSCE/ODIHR,
September 2010, <http://www.osce.org/odihr/71484>.
3 The six participating States that retained the death penalty in 2010 in some way were Belarus, Kazakhstan, Latvia,
the Russian Federation, Tajikistan and the United States of America.
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