A/HRC/10/44 page 12 Convention.17 The Human Rights Committee followed the systematic interpretation of the rights to life and personal integrity originally developed by the European Court,18 although it increasingly realized the inconsistency between its approaches towards corporal and capital punishment. This became most evident in its jurisprudence concerning different methods of execution. All members agreed that certain methods, such as stoning to death, which intentionally prolong pain and suffering, amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment. But opinions differ considerably as to which methods of execution can still be considered “humane” today. In Kindler v. Canada, the majority held in 1993 that execution by lethal injection, as practised in Pennsylvania, did not amount to inhuman punishment.19 The United States Supreme Court arrived at a similar conclusion in 2008.20 On the other hand, in its views on Ng v. Canada in 1993, the majority of the Human Rights Committee found that execution by gas asphyxiation, as practised until recently in California, did amount to cruel and inhuman treatment and, as a consequence, Canada had violated article 7 of the Covenant by having extradited the applicant to the United States.21 In Staselovich v. Belarus, the Committee found execution by a firing squad to be in conformity with article 7 of the Covenant, but at the same time held that the failure of the authorities to notify the mother of the scheduled date for the execution of her son and their subsequent persistent failure to notify her of the location of her son’s grave amounted to inhuman treatment vis-à-vis the mother.22 The Inter-American Court on Human Rights, referring to the Soering case before the European Court of Human Rights, found in the decision of Hilaire and others v. Trinidad and Tobago that the fact that the victims in detention may be taken out of the cell to be hanged at any moment or compelled to live under circumstances that impinge on their physical and psychological integrity constituted cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.23 Along similar lines, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions stated in a report submitted to the Council on transparency and the imposition of the death penalty that the practice of informing death row prisoners of their impending execution only moments before they die, and families only later, was “inhuman and degrading” (E/CN.4/2006/53/Add.3, para. 32). 17 See for example the carefully phrased judgement of the Grand Chamber of 12 May 2005 in Öcalan v. Turkey, Application No. 46221/99, para. 175. 18 See for example the controversial decision of 30 July 1993 in Kindler v. Canada, Comm. No. 470/1991, para. 15.1. 19 Ibid., para. 15.3. See also the individual opinion of Herndl and Sadi. 20 Baze et al. v. Rees, Commissioner, Kentucky Department of Corrections, et al. of 16 April 2008, No. 07-5439. 21 Decision of 5 November 1993 in Ng v. Canada, communication No. 469/1991, para. 16.4. 22 Decision of 3 April 2003 in Mariya Staselovich (and Igor Lyashkevich) v. Belarus, Comm. No. 887/1999, para. 9.2. 23 Judgement of 21 June 2002, Series C, No. 94 paras. 168-169. See also A/63/293, para. 21.