EUROPARL- the Multilingual Web Server of the European Parliament

EUROPARL- The Multilingual Web Server of the European Parliament

Minutes of 13/04/2000 - Provisional Edition
Human Rights: Death Penalty in the United States
B5-0341, 0354, 0359, 0370 and 0376/00
European Parliament Resolution on the Abolition of the Death Penalty in the United States

The European Parliament,
A. having regard to its previous resolutions on the death penalty,
B. welcoming the worldwide trend towards the abolition of the death penalty,
C. welcoming the appeal by the Sant'Egidio Community for a moratorium on the death penalty by all the world's governments by the end of 2000,
D. dismayed that a date may soon be set for Juan Garza's execution in the USA, the first execution of a prisoner under US federal law since 1963,
E. noting with interest that the Governor of Illinois has imposed a moratorium on executions owing to serious concern about the fairness of capital convictions in his State,
F. noting reports that the US Justice Department is conducting a review into race and the federal death penalty and urging that the methodology and scope of this study be made public,
G. whereas 98 persons under sentence of death were executed in the United States in 1999,
H. disturbed by Amnesty International figures which estimate that only China, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Iraq carried out more judicial executions than the United States in 1998,
I. noting that even the US Attorney General Janet Reno admits that no study so far has been able to prove the dissuasive effects of the death penalty,
1. Reiterates its call for the abolition of capital punishment and the immediate imposition of a moratorium in countries where capital punishment still exists;
2. Urges the US Government to comply with the request made by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on 27 January 2000 that the execution should not proceed before the Commission has examined and ruled on the case;
3. Urges President Clinton to grant clemency to Juan Raul Garza and to impose an immediate moratorium on federal executions, as a first step toward the universal abolition of the death penalty in the United States;
4. Calls on all candidates running in the current presidential elections also to endorse a moratorium on the death penalty and support the universal abolition of capital punishment;
5. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, President Clinton, Vice-President Gore and Governor Bush, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the President of the UN Commission on Human Rights.