A/HRC/18/20 45. In 2010, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) submitted a report entitled “Drug control, crime prevention and criminal justice: a human rights perspective”44 to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs and to the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. The report recalled that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights specified that in countries that had not abolished the death penalty, the sentence of death may be imposed only for the “most serious crimes”. The concept of “most serious crimes” is limited to those where it can be shown that there was an intention to kill which resulted in the loss of life. The weight of opinion indicates that drug offences (such as possession and trafficking) and those of a purely economic nature do not meet this threshold. Moreover, States that have abolished the death penalty are prohibited from extraditing any person to another country where he or she might face capital punishment.45 46. UNODC further reported that despite such prohibitions, a considerable number of the 47 retentionist States that continue to use capital punishment have carried out executions for drug offences in recent years. In some of these countries, drug offenders constitute a significant proportion of total executions. The report emphasized that as an entity of the United Nations system, UNODC advocated the abolition of the death penalty and called upon Member States to follow international standards concerning the prohibition of the death penalty for offences of a drug-related or purely economic nature.46 47. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General on violence against children extended her support for a campaign launched by the Child Rights Information Network in October 2010 to end all inhuman sentencing of children, including the death penalty. In her statement, the Special Representative observed that in some States, children may receive sentences of extreme violence, including flogging, stoning, amputations, life sentences and executions, and condemned the many grave injustices against children perpetrated under some penal codes.47 F. International Commission against the Death Penalty 48. Other international developments during the reporting period include the establishment of the International Commission against the Death Penalty in October 2010, with the aim of strengthening the fight against the death penalty in all regions of the world. The establishment of the Commission was an intergovernmental initiative led by Spain and supported by Algeria, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, France, Italy, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Mongolia, the Philippines, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Togo and Turkey. The Commission is composed of 12 members of high authority and international prestige, with complete independence in their decision-making and broad geographical representation. G. Regional bodies 49. Regional bodies also continued to support the world’s effort towards the abolition of the death penalty. In June 2010, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights issued an interim injunction preventing the state governors of Nigeria from resuming 44 45 46 47 E/CN.7/2010/CRP.6–E/CN.15/2010/CRP.1 Ibid., para. 25. Ibid., para. 26. See www.crin.org/violence/search/closeup.asp?infoID=23332. 13