FORUM : UNHRC

ISSUE : On Abolishing the Death Penalty

STUDENT OFFICER : Abdulla Al-Darwish
POSITION : CHAIR

OVERVIEW

Prisoners in the past have been treated unequally to citizens with the misconception that they have forfeited themselves as a result of their crime. Article
5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
This does not exclude prisoners, as humans, therefore supporting the fact that
they must be treated equally. Rights of prisoners are many within a limit, these
include: the right of freedom of speech, association, religion, the right to equal
protection under the law, the right to privacy and many more.
The laws on the protection of the rights of prisoners dier slightly from
country to country but there are certain international laws that are put forward
by the UN. These laws were outlined and put together over several conventions in
turn these include: The Third Geneva Convention, The International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights, The European Convention for the Prevention of
Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Convention on
the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This international law was established
as a consequence of world war two and the denial of civil rights and liberties on
the basis of racial, religious, and political discrimination that happened during
that period of time. Even after the establishment and implementation of these
international laws, there are countries and organizations that breached them.
Examples include the American breaches in Guantanamo Bay, where it was
claimed that this facility was not covered by the Geneva conventions as the
soldiers were combating enemy combatants, similar situations were seen in
both Iraq and Afghanistan. Death penalty also known as, capital punishment
or execution is punishment often used for criminals which ends up with the death
of the victim. The punishments if called as the death sentence. Crimes that can
result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital oenses. There

are multiple ways the death penalty is done depending on state or country.
Some examples are :
1. Lethal Injection
2. Electrocution
3. Gas Chamber
4. Firing Squad
5. Hanging

KEY TERMS

2.1

War Prisoner

A prisoner of war is a person, whether non-combatant or combatant, that is held

in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conict.

2.2

Political prisoner

A person who is held in a prison due to their ideology/ political beliefs.

2.3

Human Rights

A basic right owned by an person regardless of their race, nationality or religion.

These are outlined under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

established by the UN General Assembly on December 10th 1948 as a result of

the experience of the Second World War.

2.4

Criminal Justice

Criminal justice is a system of institutions and practices of dierent governments

dedicated to uphold social control, deter and mitigate crime, or to sanction
people who violate laws with criminal.

2.5

Lethal Injection

Lethal Injection is a method of the death penalty rst established in Oklahoma

around 1977. This is a method where the prisoner is injected with a substance
to stop the heart from functioning. Now 32 states use this method.

2.6

Electrocution

Electrocution was adapted seeking a more humane method of execution than

hanging. This method lasts for about 30 seconds. Today this is most commonly
used as a second option after lethal injection.

2.7

Gas Chamber

Gas chamber once was the more humane way for execution. Despite having
only 5 states that use it in the United States there are still multiple countries
that use it world wide.

This is used by condemned person is strapped to a

chair in an airtight chamber. Below the chair rests a pail of sulfuric acid. A
long stethoscope is typically axed to the inmate so that a doctor outside the
chamber can pronounce death.

2.8

Firing Squad

Firing squad is a method started in the army but is eventually became a method
for capital punishment. Where a group of people shoot a condemned person.

2.9

Hanging

Is another method used in some countries as capital punishment when a rope

is tied a person is neck and hanging him which eventually leeds to suocation
and death.

2.10

Stoning

Multiple countries still use stoning today, it is especially popular in the Arab
world. Many believe that stoning is mentioned in multiple Hadiths.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Criminal rights has always been a pressing issue in society, but since the establishment of the prisoner's rights laws, great improvements have been made
towards the conditions of living of prisoners and the way in which they are
treated. Violations of the rights of prisoners in the past have been many and
include but are not limited to: rape, sexual harassment, beatings, disrespect,
starving prisoners and not providing them with the necessary health care they
require. This being said, there is a list of minimum rights that must be followed
set by the UDHR.
Everyday people are punished with the death penalty but to what extent
should countries world wide be allowed to execute people.

In some countries

you are executed for rape and murder but in other you are executed if you
are caught sleeping with the opposite sex.

In some nations people who are

under 18 years old have to go order capital punishment. In early ages capital
punishment was something very common but today it has become a controversial
issue as there are some apposing groups protesting against the death penalty
since 1977, when only under 20 countries made the death penalty illegal. Today
there are over 140 countries that do not support it.

There are 36 countries

who still actively use the death penalty including Saudi Arabia, United States
of America, Jamaica and Thailand.

There are many countries who are for

capital punishment as they believe that people deserve the death penalty under
certain crimes committed. Also due to religious and traditional beliefs multiple
countries believe that capital punishment is humane.

3.1

Citizenship Rights

Prisoners are disadvantaged with the civil rights they are allowed, such as voting in elections during and after imprisonment. Even if they vote after being
released, their ballot will not be considered. Furthermore, if a citizen was imprisoned because he/she was involved in fraud and business moneymaking schemes,
most states are permitted to sue them.

Other than these rights as a citizen

has some restriction, the regular human rights are obliged to be oered, such as
health and food.

3.2

Health and Food

A medical ocer is placed in each prison facility as well as a civil hospital

incase the prisoner becomes heavily unwell.

Prisoners are entitled to suing

doctors in state courts, if they are involved in Medical Malpractice, such as

intentionally providing inadequate medical treatment. Prisoners are provided
sucient amount of food daily, with special diets required for the prisoners that
have allergies or religious inmates.

3.3

Rights of Prisoners under sentence

As a prisoner, the rights that are received by the institution and the state have
been specialized for the law-oenders in this position, such as freedom of speech
and work. When they have arrived in penalties and rehabilitation eorts. Those
that are accused of crime have protections against abuse of investigatory and
prosecution powers, though the eectiveness of these rights have varied.
As established previously, torture and use of cruel and harmful forms of
punishment are common to be used currently, even with the United Nations
Human Rights Commission's involvement.

To prevent external inquiries and

further legal issues, these are done subtly inside the prison facility.

3.4

Female and Juvenile Prisoners

Overall, the rights of women have signicantly improved over the centuries furthermore the rights of women in prison have standards that have progressed
during the decades. However, this situation is still very unstable because women
are often exploited in the prison facilities, by guards and ocials. In general,
there are still heavy forms of cruel and harmful punishment, and those inhumane
actions held by these prison facility sta members when women are imprisoned
and they are portrayed less inferior to the men. Other than the regular physical
abuse that are implemented on women in some of the prison facilities, women

are sexually harassed as well as unfairly shackled, during any form of disobedience. Several women experience pregnancy and undergo labor in the prison
cell; therefore, their children are obliged to stay in the prison as juvenile prisoners. Even with the UDHR initiating resolution for the rights of women prisoners,
there are several problems still regarding these, specically the health of women.
For example, the nutrition provided for women are in poor conditions and
are not sucient for a daily diet, therefore cause malnutrition and furthermore
the services for medical care are delayed and minimal. The medical assistance
is restricted to the congestion of in jail cells. The treatment towards juvenile
prisoners is less militant than to the treatment to prisoners however somewhat
similar.

Child labour is inclusive but part-time.

The working conditions are

more liberal and when there are juvenile delinquents arrested, they are used
mainly for community service, to greatly reduce the crimes of these young citizens and convert them into law-abiding people.

In Harvard University, the

assistant professor of clinical psychology, Charles W. Slack, had introduced this

program for 25 delinquents. After the program was installed, only 12% of the
criminals were actually sentenced to prison, whilst the rest 88% became jobholding citizens.

MAJOR COUNTRIES AND ORGANIZATIONS

INVOLVED

4.1

Saudi Arabia

Public executions still occur in Saudi Arabia.

Sharia law is implemented in

Saudi Arabia which punishes a range of their crimes with the death penalty.
There has been international condemnation on the number of crimes that result
in the death penalty in Saudi Arabia.

4.2

China

Capital punishment in China is usually used only for crimes of very serious and
violent nature, such as murder, but China tries to stay away from using the
death penalty for other crimes.

4.3

Amnesty International

Amnesty International regards the death penalty as a cruel, inhuman and degrading.

Amnesty is strongly against the death penalty regardless of who is

accused, the crime, guilt or innocence or method of execution. Amnesty International has been working since 1977 to end the death penalty. The aim of
Amnesty International is to abolish the death penalty everywhere.

4.4

Iran

In Iran, the death penalty is used for crimes including rape, murder, child
molestation, terrorism, kidnapping and robbery. Amnesty International claims
that in 2011 alone, there were 360 executions in Iran, over 200 in 2014 and
nearly 700 in 2015. These include women and juveniles. Around 70% of these
were drug related.

4.5

North Korea

The death penalty is used widely in North Korea for a wide number of oense
including theft, murder, rape, political dissidence and consumption and use of
media that is not government approved. Public handing and public decapitations are still used which make it one of the ve countries that still perform
public executions.

4.6

ICOMDP

The International Commission Against Death Penalty was initiated to abolish

the death penalty in all regions of the world. The work with governments and
within legislations to solicit the stop of executions.

4.7

World Coalition Against the Death Penalty

The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty was created in May 2002 in
Rome and includes more than 150 NGOs, authorities and unions. It was creates
due to the Final Declaration of the 1st World Congress Against the Death
Penalty in 2001.

The main purpose of the creation of this organization is to

ght against the death penalty globally.

4.8

Afghanistan

The US government was accused to have been responsible for cooperating with
the Afghan government, to allow abuse in the prisons that are in Afghanistan,
such as in the Bagram air base and Sherbarghan prison. These provided inadequate conditions, like the accommodation and sanitation facilities. Furthermore,
the religious views of the inmates were not encouraged, depriving their beliefs
and promised habits.

4.9

United States of America

Although prisoners in the USA are not aorded all the privileges of a free citizen,
they are assured certain minimal rights by the U.S. Constitution. In a prison
rights are these rights are usually maintained but they can be easily taken away
as a form of punishment to maintain the discipline within the facility. Prisoners
have no right to privacy, all ingoing and outgoing mail is read by the prison

guards and the only private conversation a prisoner can have is with their attorney. This country had introduced the constitutional rights and has corrected
the treatment and minimum standards for prisoners in correctional facilities.
The most signicant section would be the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitutional Rights. This includes the Equal Protection Clause, which explicates
that all people, including prisoners, are protected equally, from any form of severe punishment and discrimination of race, gender, and religion. However, the
prisoners do not have complete access to all of the U.S constitutional rights, like
expression and beliefs for example. Even though currently more than 100 countries have applied these conditions, it is not continuous due to the variations in
the political, social and economic standards therefore policies initiated in each
nation. The Congress has allowed federal prison ocers to control prisoners, if
they are safely secured, and the ocials constantly abide to the U.S. Constitutional Rights. If they do not, judicial oversights are necessary to be followed.
These have been set by the United Nations in prisons such as Guantanamo Bay.
The standard regarding the rights of prisoners is poor and minimum conditions
that have been failed to be met. For example, if inmates choose to starve themselves, they are tied to what is similar to an electric chair, and are force fed
through the use of plastic tubes that travel to the nose. Furthermore, discrimination of religion is found, especially to Islam. As a form of punishment, there
have been previous charges of abusing the religion, by damaging the Quran.

4.10

Burma

In July 2012, the Burmese Government recently released 12 political prisoners,

although there are still some restrictions on their rights, being a former criminal
oender of the nation. For example, these persons are still provided freedom of
movement, however their passports are revoked therefore they are not allowed
to travel abroad. Even though this did not involve legal matters, the president
explained in August 2012 that will keep them under discrete observation by
the government and allow them to earn the trust of the community, reducing
the non-volatile recognition, hence improving the stability of the country as a
whole.

4.11

Korea

On 29 August 2013, former prison inmates had escaped a Communist Dictatorship jail in North Korea and provided information on the treatment condition
during such peculiar situations. For example, a man was punished for dropping
a sewing machine, by having a nger chopped o. Fortunately, he had survived
and had converted to a law-abider from being a law oender. On the 20 August
2013, there was evidence by a witness in a prison cell, of how a mother was
obliged to kill her newborn baby and it was conrmed how a security guard
commanded her to do this, then persuaded her by beating the woman until
she drowned the child. Both of these cases were given to the United Nations
and charged North Korea with testimony.

Other forms of punishment that

North Korea has been involved in, is forced labor, malnutrition, and execution
to those that are unfaithful to the North Korean government  initiated regulations. When the United Nations wanted to interrogate North Korea on its
recent outbursts, they were prohibited from entering, because they did not want
amendments made to the current rules therefore they denied any forms of abuse
and unjust treatment towards the prisoners.

4.12

Just Detention International

A human rights organization that aims to combat sexual abuse from all forms
of detention.

Just Detention International thrives for justice to the inmates,

and ensures their safety and protection from the governmental actions on these
institutions. The headquarters were set up in Los Angeles, United States. In
Louisiana 2009, a gay prisoner was constantly raped for 2 months, by detainees
at a prison in New Orleans (New Orleans Parish Prison).

After 2 years of

pressing charges, he nally received a chance to read his testimony of assault in

2011, at the Department of Justice's Review Panel on Prisoner Rape.

4.13

Prisoner Abolition Movement: Anarchist Black Cross

A movement that intends to eliminate the prison system, and replace it with
more humane one. An example would be the Anarchist Black Cross organization, that seeks to transform the government controlled to a social, less cruel
system. The reason for this is because of the inequitable actions that occur, such
as rehabilitating more non-violent law oenders, like business frauds and making
them suer severely for crimes that have a minor eect to major criminals.

RELEVANT UN TREATIES AND EVENTS

1. Congress introduced the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Act.
2. Federal Bureau of Prisons implemented a new classication system for
female oenders as they observed that they are less likely to be violent
or attempt escape if the prison facilities improved the accommodation,
minimum security.
3. A private statement regarding the U.S president's views was signed, as
he planned to suspend the Geneva Conventions, as detainees were not
protected by them, therefore they were exposed to good as well as bad
conditions of imprisonment.
4. The Tribal Law and Order Act was signed by the law, and is referred to
imprisonment in India.
5. U.S Department of Justice created the Sexually Abusive Behaviour
6. Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners, 14 December 1990 (A/RES/45/111).

7. 62/149. Moratorium on the use of the death penalty (2007)

8. 263/168. Moratorium on the use of the death penalty. Resolution adopted
by the General Assembly on 18 December 2008
9. 65/206. Moratorium on the use of the death penalty Resolution adopted
by the General Assembly on 21 December 2010
10. 67/176. Moratorium on the use of the death penaltyResolution adopted
by the General Assembly on 20 December 2012
11. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 18 December 2014. 69/186.
Moratorium on the use of the death penalty

PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS TO SOLVE THE ISSUE AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

There have been numerous attempts to solve this pressing matter, yet the rights
of prisoners are still an unresolved issue in the UN. Many resolutions have passed
condemning the abuse of prisoners and asking member states to abstain from
their abuse but this issue wasn't resolved.

To solve the status on prisoners'

rights, there have been several other methods enforced, other than the legal documents that have been introduced by the United Nations (such as the UDHR).
In 1996, when prison oenders of Ohio had entered its prison system, they had
to undergo examinations, to conrm any physical or mental treatment that
would have been required from harmful punishments in their previous facilities.
More than 60% of these inmates were intoxicated with drugs such as cocaine
and marijuana, due to a serious addiction to them. Therefore, these prisoners
had to participate in a drug treatment program however, in 1996 when a CASA
survey was taken and concluded that 75% of the inmates had to participate,
only 12.5% of State prisoners and 10% of Federal prisoners had participated
due to limiting factors, like the lack of budgeting nance to undergo operations
that was enough for all. Until now, the acts taken to improve the female prisoners' rights have been minimal. However, in 2008, there were reproductive and
mothering rights introduced in the United States, such as the prohibition of
shackling women during pregnancy. Furthermore, as also written in a relevant
UN resolution for women prisoners, counselors will provide support and protection for them against the pain they have been inicted to.

Pregnant women

in Bangkok, which have been victimized to sexual abuse, will receive legal and
nancial aid, as well as healthcare for the parent, including the child that will
be born. In England 1998, the rst survey of the mental health of prisoners was
taken by the Oce for National Statistics. It showed that there is high mental
instability among the prisoners, with only 10% do not have any mental disorder. In 2000, the Department of Health and the Prison Service had started to
cooperate, to strategize the mental health improvements in Prison, based upon
the National Service Framework for mental health.

There are many ways in which this pressing issue may be solved. The most
important factor to be able to improve the rights of prisoners is the recognition
of prisoners, by others in society, as human beings and not a violent species
that is harmful to humanity. This recognition can be brought about by rstly
establishing a UN organization that is solely dedicated to prisoners and their
rights. This organization may have branches in dierent countries, and through
this, it can launch awareness campaigns and propaganda on this pressing matter.
Awareness programs may be in the form of posters, advertisements on television
or the radio, yers in newspapers or campaigns including speakers that will raise
awareness of prisoner abuse and their rights.
As well as awareness of the rights of prisoners, the UN organization established to maintain these rights must push for every country to follow a list of
minimum requirements. These requirements should include but are not limited
to: Suitable health care when required, food and water in portions enough for
the individual's needs, the right to be treated as equal as any human being by all
personnel in the prison and the right to sue a prison guard if they were beaten,
sexually assaulted or harassed in any way.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. "UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL." United Nations Hu-

man Rights Council. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2013 < http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/

2. "Prisoners' Rights." LII. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2013 < http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/prisoners_righ
3. "United Nations Oce on Drugs and Crime." UNODC Perspectives No.
2. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2013
4. http://www.unodc.org/newsletter/en/perspectives/no02/page004a.html
5. "Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus." The Free Dictionary. Farlex,
n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2013< http://www.thefreedictionary.com >
6. "Burma: Former Political Prisoners Persecuted | Human Rights Watch."
Burma:

Former Political Prisoners Persecuted | Human Rights Watch.

N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2013. <http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/09/17/burmaformer-political-prisoners-persecuted>

7. "Who We Are | Amnesty International." Who We Are | Amnesty International. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2013. <http://www.amnesty.org/en/whowe-are>
8. "Prisoners' Rights in International Law." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Founda-

tion, 10 Apr. 2013. Web. 17 Oct. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners%27_rights_in_interna

9. "Prisoners' Rights." Wikipedia.

Wikimedia Foundation, 16 Oct.

Web. 18 Oct. 2013

10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners'_rights

10

2013.