Contemporary Human Rights CAPITAL PUNISHMENT Evaluate the effectiveness of the legal and non-legal responses in concerns with the contemporary human rights issue of capital punishment. Human rights are the basic universally recognised liberties and entitlements accorded to all people that are inalienable but unfortunately these rights in the use of capital punishment are abused. Capital Punishment also referred to as the death penalty, or execution is a legal process whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime such as murder, aggravated sexual assault, apostasy, treason and in more recent times the trafficking of humans and drugs. Over 60% of the world's population live in countries where a person’s right to “humane treatment” and to a life of “liberty and freedom” is violated because of the use of capital punishment. Both legal and non-legal methods have undertaken various measures to address the issue of capital punishment. Legal methods such as United Nations Resolutions and Protocols and international and domestic legislation have been put in place in order to achieve “A Global Moratorium on Capital Punishment”. The United Nation as a Global Entity encourages its nation states to move for a “Global Moratorium on Capital Punishment” through its binding resolutions and protocols. The United Nations Convention on the Right of the Child in article 37 prohibits the subjection of a juvenile to torture, capital punishment and deprivation of liberty and the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in its 11 articles stresses the necessity of a universal ban on capital punishment. Although the United Nations is a very influential power without the initial signing and ratification of its binding resolutions and protocols a nation state is not liable when breaching any of the articles within the resolution/ protocol due to a its right to state sovereignty “a countries ability to enforce its own laws”. Global legislation concerning the abolishment of capital punishment is dependent on the initial signing and ratification of United Nations resolutions and protocols. The Australian Federal Government passed into Legislation the abolishment of capital punishment with the Death Penalty Abolition Act 1973 (Ctlh) which ratifies the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This legislation forbids the use of capital punishment and makes R v Ronald Ryan (VIC ) 1966 the last person executed on Australia soil. But without the initial signing and ratification of United Nations resolution and protocols nations are allowed to use capital punishment in the sentencing of an offender. An example of this is the case of Singapore v Van Tuong Nguyen (2005) ("Terrified Walk to a Long-Drop Execution." The Daily Telegraph. December 1, 2005), were Van Nguyen (an Australian citizen) was hung in Changi prison on the 2nd of December 2005 under Singapore’s “Mandatory [Type text] Page 1 Capital Punishment” Section 316 of the Criminal Procedure Code for smuggling 396 grams of heroin into Singapore. [Type text] Page 2 Non-Legal methods such as United Nations many declarations, The European Union and Council of Europe requirement of membership, Amnesty International campaigns and NSW Council for Civil Liberties campaigns also strive to achieve “A Global Moratorium on Capital Punishment”. The United Nations has a number of declarations which aim to move towards a “Global Moratorium on Capital Punishment”. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in both Article 3 and Article 5 deem capital punishment to be a breach of Human Rights and encourage its abolishment within their nation states. More recently in 2007 The United Nations passed a declaration which introduced the idea of a “Global Moratorium on Capital Punishment “which encourages global abolishment of capital punishment. However a declaration is not “binding” therefore nation states are able to use state sovereignty “a countries ability to enforce its own laws” to vote against a declaration which the nation states of the United States of America, the People’s Republic of China, India and Singapore have done have with the 2007 declaration of a “Global Moratorium on Capital Punishment. Both The European Union and The Council of Europe require its observer nations to abolish the use of capital punishment specifically in times of peace and war or risk the chance of losing their observer status. As The Council of Europe and The European Union enable countries to have say in continental issues and communicate with other countries it has been able to abolish capital punishment within most of its observer nations and even suspended its use in countries such as Russia. This requirement has even been able to eradicated capital punishment within countries that wish to become a part of particularly The Council of Europe. In 2002 Turkey, through the abolishment of legislation legalising capital punishment became part of the Council of Europe. Amnesty International is a worldwide organisation that campaigns for the international recognition of human rights. Amnesty has through its campaign “End The Death Penalty” has created a great sense of awareness globally through its blogs, case stories and protesting movements especially in the Pacific Asia region where of the infringement of human rights caused by capital punishment is colossal. Through this campaign Amnesty successfully aided Cambodia in abolishing its legislation legalising capital punishment through the ratification of Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which aims to eradicate capital punishment. The NSW Council for Civil Liberties is an organisation which aims to establish and secure the rights of all people especially in nations were governmental power is abused. NSWCCL through its media release tries to create a greater sense of awareness in the Australian community of the human rights breached in using capital punishment. The media release “Government Authorises More Death Penalty Cooperation” on 8 August 2007 notified and outraged the public as it told of the Australian Federal Police involvement in authentication of the capital punishment in cases in Indonesia, Malaysia and Tonga. [Type text] Page 3 Through the combination of both legal and non-legal measures it can be noted that some success has been achieved in reaching a “Global Moratorium on Capital Punishment “ as, as of 2012 97 countries have abolished capital punishment. Legal methods although internationally recognised and “legally binding”, enable freedom to countries that wish to use capital punishment through “state sovereignty” which has allowed 58 nations to actively practice capital punishment. Non-legal measure seem to be more effective they aware the international community of the breach of human rights attained through capital punishment and have even convince countries such as Cambodia to eradicate the use of capital punishment in their legal system. In order to achieve a “Global Moratorium on Capital Punishment” legal methods need to adopt measures that that are not only internationally recognised and “legally binding” but methods that aware the governmental powers of each nation state the breach of human rights they have legalised which could like in Cambodia convince nation states to abolish capital punishment without taking away their right to “state sovereignty”. INTERNATIONAL CRIME ESSAY International Crimes involves the crossing of international borders in the commission or planning of a breach of the criminal standards imposed by the international community. There are varies categories of international crime such as crimes against the international community including war crimes and genocide and transnational crimes including human trafficking. International Crimes are legally, financially and socially challenging so international and national methods have been put in place to stop and prevent international crime such as legislation, treaties, courts and organisations. Crimes against the international community are a collection of offences that are condemned by the whole international community and are punishable internationally. These crimes can be committed in the brutality of war, in the name of politics or be ordered or committed by the State itself. Two crimes of such nature are war crimes and genocide. A war crime is an action carried out during the conduct of a war that violates accepted international rules of war. The criminal violations must have taken place during an armed conflict, either international or domestically. For example the Liberian President Charles Taylor during civil war in Sierra Leone from 1991-2002 committed the war crimes of instigated murder, rape, mutilation, sexual slavery and conscription of child soldiers. Genocide is the intentional act of destroying through various brutal acts of all or part of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Genocide could be the killing, causation of serious bodily/ mental harm, birth prevention or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. For example the Guatemala Genocide Case where by the Guatemala military and paramilitaries from 1983- 1984 killed or removed 200,000 Mayans on the [Type text] Page 4 grounds that the Mayans were forming a sub verse ‘internal communist enemy’ against the government. Methods that have been put in place to deal with Crimes against the international