A/HRC/39/19 I. Introduction 1. Pursuant to Human Rights Council decision 18/117, the present report is submitted to update previous reports on the question of the death penalty, including the most recent quinquennial report of the Secretary-General (E/2015/49 and Corr.1). Pursuant to Council resolution 22/11, the report also includes information on the human rights of children of parents sentenced to the death penalty or executed. 2. The report covers the period from July 2016 to June 2018. It is based notably on a call for inputs circulated on 29 January 2018 to States, national human rights institutions, United Nations agencies, international and regional intergovernmental bodies and non-governmental organizations.1 Attention is also drawn to the report of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty (A/73/260), in which he outlined efforts made towards the implementation of Assembly resolution 71/187. II. Changes in law and practice 3. Changes in law include new legislation abolishing or reinstating the death penalty, restricting it or expanding its scope, as well as ratification of international human rights treaties that provide for the abolition of the death penalty. Changes in practice comprise non-legislative measures, including executive and judicial measures. A. Abolition of the death penalty or initiatives taken for its abolition, including commitments provided to abolish it 4. Some 170 States have abolished or introduced a moratorium on the death penalty either in law or in practice, or have suspended executions for more than 10 years. During the reporting period, criminal codes which do not provide for the death penalty were adopted or came into force in Benin,2 Burkina Faso3 and Mongolia.4 In the Central African Republic5 and Guinea,6 military justice codes which do not provide for the death penalty were adopted or came into force. The National Assembly of Chad promulgated a penal code which abolishes the death penalty for ordinary crimes, while maintaining it for “terrorism”. 7 In October 2017, the Guatemala Constitutional Court effectively abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes.8 Madagascar and Sao Tome and Principe ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty; the Dominican Republic, Togo and the State of Palestine acceded to it and the Gambia signed it.9 In the United States of America, the Delaware Supreme Court ruled that the capital sentencing statute in that state was unconstitutional, and therefore abolished the death penalty.10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Submissions are available for consultation from the Secretariat. Law 2018-15. See www.assembleenationale.bf/. Criminal Code, in force 1 July 2017. Military Justice Code, adopted March 2017. Military Justice Code, in force 28 December 2017. Law No. 2017-01, 8 May 2017. Decision 5986-2016, 24 October 2017. See https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV12&chapter=4&clang=_en; and S/2018/614, para 52. The President of the Gambia also announced a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in February 2018 “as a first step towards abolition”. See https://statehouse.gov.gm/statement-53rd-independence-anniversary-celebration. Rauf v. State of Delaware, No. 39, 2016. The decision applies retroactively (Powell v. State of Delaware, No. 310, 2016). 3