A/HRC/36/27 economic and social status, and the profile of lawyers assigned to provide counsel. It should be used to analyse the potential for discrimination and the effectiveness of legal aid, to enhance transparency in the criminal justice system and to educate judges and public figures. The international human rights system, particularly the Human Rights Committee, and regional mechanisms had a role to play in sharing information and experiences and could be agents for change on the question of the death penalty. At the national level, the adoption of a national human rights plan that incorporated a commitment to phase out the death penalty would be helpful, as would civil society advocacy. In addition, it would be important to reform the criminal justice system, including by reconsidering the offences subject to the death penalty. 16. The Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment focused on whether there was an emerging customary norm prohibiting the death penalty in all circumstances. While customary international law had not yet evolved to prohibit the death penalty in all circumstances, which meant that it was theoretically possible to retain the death penalty in compliance with international law, in practice the increasingly rigorous conditions imposed by international human rights jurisprudence made it almost impossible to carry out the death penalty without violating the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. While article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights did not prohibit the death penalty, it subjected it to strict conditions. Article 7, however, prohibited torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment outright, leading to the conclusion that any execution that violated article 7 constituted an act of arbitrary deprivation of life. 17. Furthermore, since the adoption of the Covenant in 1966, international, regional and national practices and laws had evolved to favour the abolition of the death penalty. In that regard, the Special Rapporteur recalled the American Convention on Human Rights (1969) and the Protocol to that Convention to Abolish the Death Penalty (1990); the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1950), Protocol No. 6 to that Convention concerning the abolition of the death penalty as amended by Protocol No. 11 (1983) and Protocol No. 13 to that same Convention concerning the abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances (2002); and the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty (1989). In contrast to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (1945-1946) and the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (1946), the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998), the Statute of the International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991 (1993) and the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Genocide and Other Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of Rwanda and Rwandan Citizens Responsible for Genocide and Other Such Violations Committed in the Territory of Neighbouring States between 1 January and 31 December 1994 (1994) all prohibit the death penalty, even for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Over 160 Member States had abolished the death penalty or had introduced moratoriums, in law or in practice. The global trend towards the complete abolition of the death penalty might ultimately result in a generalized customary prohibition of the death penalty. Moreover, according to the European Court of Human Rights, the death row phenomenon4 and any method of execution or the fear of execution5 amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment. 18. The Special Rapporteur also spoke of methods of execution that inflicted unnecessary mental or physical suffering or humiliation and had been found to violate the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. They included execution by stoning, gas asphyxiation, hanging, the electric chair, burning, live burial, decapitation, lethal injection (when untested and/or not administered properly) and any form of secret or public execution. In a 2015 report, the Secretary-General concluded that the death penalty was incompatible with human dignity, the right to life and the 4 5 6 Soering v. United Kingdom, judgment of 7 July 1989. Al-Saadoon and Mufdhi v. the United Kingdom, judgment of 2 March 2010.