A/HRC/27/26 I. Introduction 1. Pursuant to its decision 22/117, the Human Rights Council held a high-level panel discussion on the question of the death penalty on 5 March 2014, at its twenty-fifth session. The aim of the panel discussion was (a) the exchange of views on advances, best practices and challenges relating to the abolition of the death penalty and to the introduction of a moratorium on executions and (b) the exchange of views relating to national debates on or processes for the abolition of the death penalty. 2. The panel discussion was chaired by Baudelaire Ndong Ella, President of the Human Rights Council, and moderated by Nicolas Niemtchinow, Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva. The Secretary-General of the United Nations sent a video message. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights delivered an opening statement. The panellists were: Valentin Djenontin-Agossou, Minister of Justice, Human Rights and Legislation of Benin; Khadija Rouissi, Vice-President of the National Parliament of Morocco; Kirk Bloodsworth, Director of Advocacy, Witness to Innocence; and Asma Jahangir, Commissioner, International Commission against the Death Penalty, and former Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. 3. The present summary was prepared by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights pursuant to Human Rights Council decision 22/117, in which the Council requested the Office to prepare a report on the panel discussion in the form of a summary. II. Video message of the Secretary-General of the United Nations 4. In his video message, the Secretary-General said that, in 2007, the General Assembly had taken a significant step towards the abolition of capital punishment when it had called in resolution 62/149 for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty. Since the adoption of that landmark resolution, the trend against capital punishment had become stronger and was evident in every region and across all legal systems, traditions and religions. Around 160 countries had either abolished the death penalty or no longer practised it. 5. The Secretary-General emphasized that the taking of life was too irreversible for one human being to inflict it on another. In countries that allowed capital punishment, there remained too many cases of people being put to death despite legitimate questions about their guilt, or in hasty circumstances in which international standards regarding due process were not adhered to. He also argued that the death penalty was unjust and incompatible with fundamental human rights. 6. The Secretary-General called on States that had not yet done so to ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty. It was his sincere hope to see many ratifications, as the international community would mark the Protocol’s twenty-fifth anniversary at an event to be held in New York later in 2014. 3