USA: Death penalty, still a part of the ‘American experiment’, still wrong

Index Number: AMR 51/089/2010
Date Published: 22 September 2010
Categories: USA

Last month, the US administration sent a report to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in relation to upcoming scrutiny of the USA’s human rights record under the Universal Periodic Review process. In its report the USA touches briefly on the death penalty, saying that "it may impose the death penalty for the most serious crimes and subject to exacting procedural safeguards”. Political determination to turn the USA away from judicial killing has been sadly lacking over the years.