A/HRC/18/20 due process and a fair trial before a competent, independent and impartial court previously established by law.60 H. Other initiatives 57. During the reporting period, NGOs strengthened their efforts towards the abolition of the death penalty. In September 2010, a regional conference on the death penalty was jointly organized in Alexandria, Egypt by Penal Reform International, the Swedish Institute Alexandria and the Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession, with the participation of civil society organizations, and regional and international bodies, including the European Union, the League of Arab States, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. As an outcome of the conference, a toolkit was published in December 2010.61 The toolkit includes practical suggestions to develop appropriate advocacy strategies, identify methodologies and provide guidance to influence change at national, regional and international levels. 58. In February 2011, several human rights NGOs established an informal alliance to intensify a campaign against the death penalty in Thailand. At a side event during the eleventh session of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review, the World Coalition against the Death Penalty and the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago launched a new international database of the laws and practices of States that retain the death penalty.62 V. Conclusions 59. Recent developments on the question of the death penalty outlined in the present report suggest that the effort to abolish the death penalty continues. With the adoption of its third resolution (65/206) on a moratorium on the death penalty, the General Assembly reiterated its call for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the death penalty, aiming to abolish it. The General Assembly has emphasized that the death penalty undermines human dignity. This sentiment finds echoes in every region of the world. To mark the twentieth anniversary of the entry into force of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in July 2011, States should multiply their efforts to secure increased ratification of this international human rights instrument. 60. Abolishing the death penalty is a long process for many countries, which often comes to closure only after a period of difficult and even acrimonious national debate. States should make the relevant information on the death penalty available to the people to make such debates meaningful. Until the death penalty is abolished, States Members of the United Nations who still intend to impose the death penalty should either introduce a moratorium on the death penalty or apply the death penalty only in the cases of the most serious crimes. The protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty should be ensured, pursuant to the relevant international standards. 60 61 62 16 Annual report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 2010 (OEA/Ser.2/V/III, Doc.5, Rev.1), 7 March 2011, para. 413. Mervat Rishmawi and Taleb al-Saqqaf, The Death Penalty in the Middle East and North Africa: Tools, Techniques, Tactics and Strategies for Abolition (Penal Reform International, 2010). See www.deathpenaltyworldwide.org.