News and Developments 2005: International

During a recent meeting of the European Union's full assembly, European Parliament president Josep Borrell called on the 76 countries around the world that continue to retain the death penalty to discontinue use of capital punishment. He noted that the United States is the only democratic state that makes "widespread use" of the death penalty and that the European Union has a duty to convince Americans to end the practice.

The Amicus Journal discusses death penalty issues from around the world.  The latest edition contains articles on the "teamwork" approach used by capital defense attorneys in Virginia, Africa's progress in abandoning the death penalty, and a feature on the experience of being a lawyer on the front lines of capital litigation in the U.S. The publication also examines the recent U.S. Supreme Court cases of Medellin  v. Dretke and Miller-El v. Dretke.  (13 Amicus Journal (2005), published in London by the Andrew Lee Jones Fund). See Resources. 

Qin Yanhong was convicted of rape and murder in China in 1999.  A panel of judges sentenced him to death.  His conviction was the result of a confession that followed days of torture and interrorgation by police, despite the fact that such tactics are forbidden under Chinese law.  The senior detective on the case expressed absolute confidence in the conviction and even offered to accept the punishment if it was proven wrong.  In 2001, another man walked into a nearby police station and confessed to a spate of killings and described the murder that Mr.

As Iraq resumed carrying out the death penalty with the execution of three nationals on September 1, the European Union (EU) expressed its hope that Iraq would abandon capital punishment. In a statement released after the executions, the EU noted, "The EU is of the view that the death penalty does not serve as an effective deterrent and any miscarriage of justice, which might arise in any legal system, would be irreversible. The EU therefore regrets that the government of Iraq has elected to implement the death penalty in these cases.

A new law review article by international death penalty expert Mark Warren concludes that the retention of capital punishment in the United States distances the nation from its closest allies "in ways both symbolic and tangible, and the costs of that isolation are rising steadily." Warren's article, Death, Dissent, and Diplomacy: The U.S. Death Penalty as an Obstacle to Foreign Relations, examines a broad range of concerns, including treaty compliance and global security.