A/HRC/12/45 page 6 from a lack of transparency on the part of many Governments in relation to numbers and characteristics of individuals executed. In some countries this information is designated as being a State secret. Figures of global executions in 2008 collected by non-governmental organizations range from 2,390 to 5,727, with provisos that the real figure could be significantly higher.2 The number of those executed for offences committed while children is estimated at 20 for the period 1 January 2008 to 30 June 2009.3 21. The reporting period saw instances of large-scale commutations of death sentences. Thus, in January 2009 the President of Ghana commuted all remaining death sentences (around 500) to prison terms, while the President of Zambia commuted over 50 death sentences. IV. INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS 22. On 18 December 2008, the General Assembly adopted resolution 63/168 entitled “Moratorium on the use of the death penalty”. In the resolution the Assembly welcomed the decisions taken by an increasing number of States to apply a moratorium on executions and follow the global trend towards the abolition of the death penalty. It further welcomed the report of the Secretary-General and the conclusions and recommendations contained therein. Under the terms of the resolution, the Secretary-General is to report to the Assembly at its sixty-fifth session on the resolution’s implementation. In a note verbale addressed to the Secretary-General dated 12 February 2009, the permanent missions to the United Nations of 53 Member States expressed, inter alia, their “persistent objection to any attempt to impose a moratorium on the use of the death penalty or its abolition in contravention to existing stipulations under international law” (see A/63/716). 23. On 24 November 2008, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights adopted a resolution calling on States parties to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights that still retain the death penalty to (inter alia) ensure fair trial guarantees in capital trials and to observe a moratorium on the execution of death sentences with a view to abolishing the death penalty.4 24. In July 2009 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe adopted a resolution “on a moratorium on the death penalty and towards its abolition”.5 2 Amnesty International, The death penalty in 2008, Hands off Cain, 2008 Report on the Death Penalty Worldwide. 3 Ibid. 4 ACHPR/Res.136 (XXXXIIII). 5 “Resolution on a Moratorium on the Death Penalty and Towards its Abolition”, Resolutions Adopted at the Eighteenth Annual Session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Vilnius, 29 June-3 July 2009, AS (09) D 1 E.