A/HRC/10/44 page 14 discarded. [It is] thus inconsistent with the fundamental premise of the clause [prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment] that even the vilest criminal remains a human being possessed of common human dignity.”28 42. This perspective on the death penalty as primarily a question of human dignity appears to underlie also the most important pronouncement of the international community on the death penalty. In its resolution 62/149, in which it called upon all States to establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolish the death penalty, the General Assembly justified this by stating that the use of the death penalty undermined human dignity. Although the notion of human dignity underpins the development of human rights in general, this statement can be interpreted as implying that the clear majority of States Members of the United Nations today consider that the death penalty violates the right to not be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment. 43. In this respect, it is also particularly noteworthy that the absolute prohibition of the death penalty against juvenile offenders in the Convention on the Rights of the Child is contained in article 37 (a), the provision prohibiting cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and not in article 6 on the inherent right to life. 44. The Committee against Torture has not yet developed a clear legal reasoning as to whether capital punishment per se constitutes cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment, nor has it pronounced itself in the individual complaints procedure on the compatibility of capital punishment with the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment in article 16 of the Convention against Torture. The Committee has, however, repeatedly called on States parties in the State reporting procedure to abolish capital punishment.29 45. At the national level, a significant number of courts of last instance and constitutional courts have found that the death penalty per se violates the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.30 One of the most convincing legal opinions to this effect was developed 28 This statement was made in a dissenting opinion to a judgement finding that the death penalty did not constitute “cruel and unusual” punishment. Gregg v. Georgia, Supreme Court of the United States, 428 US 53 (1976), Brennan J dissenting. 29 30 A/55/44, para. 75 (g) and A/50/44, para. 169. See for example the judgements of the Constitutional Court of Hungary, ruling 23/1990 (X 31) AB, Constitutional Court of Hungary, judgement of 24 October 1990, Magyar Közlöny (Official Gazette), 31 October 1991; the Constitutional Court of Lithuania, judgement of 9 December 1998, case No. 2/98; the Constitutional Court of Albania, decision in the name of the Republic on the Incompatibility with the Constitution of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Albania dispositions providing for the death penalty, Tirana, 10 December 1999; Constitutional Court of Ukraine, case No. 1-33/99, judgement of 30 December 1999, para. 2. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, in a trilogy of cases known as the The Queen v. Hughes, held that imposition of the “mandatory death penalty” violated the right to humane treatment under the constitutions of St. Lucia, St. Christopher and Nevis and Belize.