A/HRC/12/45 page 3 I. INTRODUCTION 1. The Secretary-General submitted to the Commission on Human Rights an annual report on the question of the death penalty. These reports provided interim supplements to the Secretary-General’s quinquennial reports to the Economic and Social Council on capital punishment and implementation of the safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty. Following Commission on Human Rights resolution 2005/59, a report was submitted to the Commission at its sixty-second session (E/CN.4/2006/83). The Human Rights Council in its decision 2/102 requested the Secretary-General to continue with the fulfilment of his activities, in accordance with all previous decisions adopted by the Commission on Human Rights, and to update relevant reports and studies. The present report is submitted in this context as an update of previous reports on the question of the death penalty, including the Secretary-General’s latest quinquennial report of 2005 (E/2005/3 and Add.1 and Corr.1), and the previous reports to the Commission and Council (E/CN.4/2006/83, A/HRC/4/78 and A/HRC/8/11). The present report covers developments on the question of the death penalty from 1 June 2008 to 1 July 2009. Attention is also drawn to the report of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly at its sixty-third session entitled “Moratoriums on the use of the death penalty” (A/63/293 and Corr.1). II. CHANGES AND PRACTICES 2. Changes in law may include new legislation abolishing or reinstating the death penalty, or restricting or expanding its scope, as well as ratifications of international instruments that provide for the abolition of the death penalty. Changes in practice may cover non-legislative measures with a significant new approach regarding the use of the death penalty; for example, countries may, while retaining the death penalty, announce a moratorium on its application. Based on information collected from available sources, the following changes in law and practice can be reported for the period 1 June 2008 to 1 July 2009. A. Countries which have abolished the death penalty for all crimes 3. April 2009 saw the introduction of a new Criminal Code in Burundi which abolished the death penalty for all crimes. In June 2009, Togo also abolished the death penalty for all crimes, the country having maintained a de facto moratorium on the application of the death penalty since 1978. 4. In March 2009 the State of New Mexico in the United States abolished the death penalty, substituting for it the punishment of life imprisonment without possibility of parole. B. Countries which have abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes 5. No countries abolished the death penalty for only ordinary crimes during the reporting period. C. Countries which have restricted the scope of the death penalty or are limiting its use 6. In June 2008, the United States Supreme Court in Kennedy v. Louisiana held by majority that the death penalty could not be applied in the case of the crime of rape of a child where the