Successful Stories: Implementing a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty - Good Practices and Experiences From All Regions

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome. Please do take your seats so we can get started. We have a packed schedule today. Hi, my name is Shireen Tadros, and I am the representative for Amnesty International at the United Nations. It is such an honor today to be with you all, to see how much interest there is in this subject, in this issue. As I look around the room, so many friendly faces. I've got to say, in 10 years of being at the UN and dozens and dozens of panels that I've moderated, I don't think I've ever been on one that's been so positively named. And this is really the spirit of today's event. It's about the success stories. It's about talking about the good practices and the experiences from all different regions. And that's why we're here today. Some 170 states have now abolished or introduced a moratorium on the death penalty, either in law or in practice. Last year, only 17 countries carried out executions. That is the lowest number of countries ever recorded. But the truth is that even one execution is too much. This is a cruel and discriminatory practice, too often used by governments as a show of force and warning to others who challenge them. The aim of today's event is to highlight the progress made in the implementation of the use of the death penalty across regions, share good practices, explore the pathways towards abolition, and encourage further international cooperation and dialogue on how to advance implementation of the General Assembly's call for a moratorium. Over the next hour and a half, we will have two panels. to help us navigate just these questions and hear from experts who have spent their careers researching and advocating on this. A heartfelt thanks goes to the Interregional Task Force on the Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty, and a huge special thanks too to the EU and France and their teams, their dedicated teams, without whom we would not be here today and this event would not have been possible. The event also comes, of course, as the death penalty resolution is being negotiated at the Third Committee and also on the eve of the World Day Against the Death Penalty. Without further ado, I give the floor to His Excellency Mr. Frank Grutter, Permanent Representative of Switzerland, for his opening remarks, sir.

Thank you very much. Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, dear friends, it's a great honor for me to open this side event alongside so many dear colleagues and a great set of panelists who are here present. And to all of you, thank you for being here this afternoon. As Shireen mentioned, Switzerland and Mexico are co-facilitating this year's resolution on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty. And we do so on behalf of the Interregional Task Force, which brings together 46 countries from all corners of the world. Since its first adoption in 2007, the support for this resolution has grown. It has grown steadily. In 2024, we had 130 states who voted in favor of the resolution. In 2007, that was the first year when we had the resolution, the number stood at 104. And we, as states who support the resolution, we all have different histories, different cultures, different legal systems, but we have one common objective: to move us towards a global moratorium on the use of the death penalty. We also share the recognition that capital punishment raises fundamental concerns in relation to human rights. On the one hand, it is important to note that the world is gradually moving away from capital punishment. According to the High Commissioner of Human Rights, some 170 states have abolished or introduced a moratorium on the death penalty. either in law or in practice. On the other hand, we also face serious setbacks. In 2025, Amnesty International recorded more than 2,700 executions worldwide, which is an increase of 80% compared to the year before. Yet, and Shireen has mentioned this, it's only 17 countries who are known to have carried out execution. 17 countries. So it's a small number of states that is driving this surge. But regrettably, some states have recently resumed the use of the death penalty after long periods of suspension. Others have taken steps to reintroduce it into national legislation or to expand the types of offenses for which the death penalty can be imposed. Nearly half of all recorded executions were for drug-related offenses. In other cases, the death penalty was used as a tool for political repression to suppress protest and silence dissent. Such executions, all of the above I've just have mentioned, violate international law. International law allows for the death penalty, but restricts it to the most serious crimes. And we also must recall that no justice system is free of error. The death penalty carries an irreversible risk of executing innocent people. Once carried out, a miscarriage of justice cannot be corrected or undone. In the United States alone, more than 200 individuals have been formally exonerated from death row over the past 50 years. 200 individuals. For Switzerland, it's clear there can be no justice that kills. Justice must respond to violence without reproducing it. The failed execution of Christa Pike just last week is a reminder that there is no humane way to take someone's life. But today, we are here to focus on something positive, on success stories. We want to hear how states who have abolished the death penalty or have introduced a moratorium have actually made progress. What steps did they take? What obstacles did they face, and how did they overcome them? I very much look forward to hearing about the success stories from Mongolia, Lebanon, and Sierra Leone. I believe that some of their experience are all the more compelling because reform has been pursued amid profound security challenges, and it is precisely in such circumstances that legal safeguards matter most. Excellencies, dear friends, let me conclude by reiterating again, the direction of history is clear. A global moratorium on the use of the death penalty is the way to go. And this way will become easier and more compelling if when states, civil society, and researchers share their experiences, build trust, and support one another. And I hope today's discussion will do exactly that. that it will take us one more step into this direction together. I thank you for your attention and for being here today. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Ambassador, for that excellent framing. We're going to dive straight into our first panel, and this is about sharing good practices and experiences from across different regions. We have a distinguished panel with us today. His Excellency Mr. Ankpayo Nyamdorj, Permanent Representative of Mongolia to the United Nations. His Excellency Mr. Ahmed Arafah, Permanent Representative of Lebanon to the United Nations. And Her Excellency Ms. Michaela Edinhia-Swalow, Deputy Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone to the United Thank you so much, all of you, for being here. And if I could, sir, start with Ambassador Niamdorj, because Mongolia formally abolished the death penalty in 2015, but long before that, there was almost like a phasing out. And even in the 1950s, there was an attempt and some restrictions put on the death penalty, which I'll get back to in a moment. But I'm wondering, as you went past that 10-year, that decade anniversary, if you like, just this September, of the abolishment. Tell us about the political background, what was going on in terms of the legal considerations at the time, 10 years ago, when that decision was made?

Allow me to begin by expressing my deepest appreciation to the Co-Philislator, Mexico and Switzerland, as well as today's event organizers, EU, France, and the members of the Interregional Task Force on the moratorium of the death penalty. Thank you for the question. I think from 2010 to 2027, our progress was progressive. And how it started is that on January 14th of 2010, Mr. Elbegdor Tsakhaa, back then the President of Mongolia, declared a moratorium on the use of death penalty during his address to the plenary meeting of the Parliament. Back then, he explained the decision was made on inhumane, grave and undemocratic nature of the death penalty exercised by the state against its own citizens. Of course, the irreversibility of the death penalty is another reason. Thirdly, there was a stronger international call and movement at the time for the abolition of the death penalty. But I think I have to admit that even as a lawyer myself, the decision was not really anticipated by many. So it resulted, triggered a nationwide discussion, controversy, some supporting, some saying, oh, it's bad, and so on, so on. The discussion focused on its merits, its timing, whether it's the right time or wrong time. And looking back to that time is that I think during the initial decision, I think his PR team really did a good job on making the public to understand why it should be now, why the decision is important, and so on, so on. And, you know, the death penalty naturally is very grave. That's, I have to highlight it. Now, after the introduction of the moratorium, there were two years of discussions happening in the capital, different parts of the country, and so on, so on, and eventually, The good thing is I think the public came to consensus on it was the right decision to go ahead. Also, I think the timing was very good time for Mongolia because we were experiencing the never seen before economic development, which was 17.3% back then. And then also the overall crime rate was, compared to the previous years, were declining, especially those subject to the death penalty back then. And then, of course, once the president introduced the moratorium, the international community really embraced us. We should go ahead and move forward with the decision. The government agencies were quietly doing our job together. For instance, in my department, we were translating the second options protocol with the aim of ratifying it when the time is right. And we were, you know, alongside with the public discussion, we were doing every preparation work for the ratification of the second amendment. And then on January 5th of 2012, two years after the introduction of the moratorium, parliament ratified the second optional protocol to the ICCRP. And then, you know, the moratorium, we could have stayed longer with the decision, but we needed to make an international legal commitment so we can, you know, make it strong for our decision. And then once we acceded to the second optional protocol, we needed to make, of course, the amendments to the criminal code. And then on December 3rd of 2015, the parliament adopted the revised criminal code, which took effect on 1st July 2017, having no sentence, replaced by the lifetime imprisonment for those crimes that were previously punishable by death penalty. Those includes, you know, the sabotage, terrorism, genocide, international, intentional aggravated killing, including higher ranking officials, state officials, and also aggravated crime, especially against children. So that's how it happened. In, I think, looking back, the Mongolian experience really demonstrate that the moratorium can really serve as a political and practical bridge towards to complete abolition. I have to say that our process was gradual, but progressive measures based on nationwide consensus. Strong political leadership was key, supported by public and all the stakeholders, including lawyers, scholars, civil society, and human rights organizations. The well-designed action toward the legislation on the abolition of the death penalty, including ratification of the second protocol and the amendment of the criminal code. Now, let me just highlight on re-establishment issue. And I think you did really an excellent job of studying our case, because I didn't know until today that we had abolished the death penalty some 60 years ago and then reinstated it after 10 months. I have to admit that there will be always topic rising time to time, over and over, of discussion of reinstating the death penalty, especially when you see very grave crimes, which also happened in our history, I mean, in recent years. Populist politicians, I have to say that, this one, can also threaten to reinstate the death penalty, based on public opinion and demand at the time being, but it's again, it's all has political purpose, nothing else. So once there were strong discussions and argument that we have to reinstate it, what we made sure is that it's too late. it's too late because the both the ICCPR or the second option protocol has no termination, denunciation or withdrawal provision in it. So it was the legal support for us and we make sure that public do understand that. Secondly, you can't go out from ICCPR or second protocol as supported by the Human Rights Committee's General Comment number 26, number 26. And then the constitution also plays its part because we have to fulfill in good faith of our international obligation. So we can't just go back. Also, I think in practice that when the discussion happened, happened overtime time, you also have to have public discussions on the topic. Make it go away, make it go away gradually, gradually. So with that, I'll stop here and then thank you all of you being with us today. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Ambassador. If I could just push you a little bit, because I think you make such a great point there about 10 years ago versus the 1950s, right? Because you're saying that in both instances, when you tried to abolish, there was pushback, but 10 years ago, it didn't stick. So what's your advice to those who perhaps are newer to abolishing the death penalty in terms of what are the key things, the two key things they must watch out for and make sure they do so that it's sustainable.

I don't know what happened in 1950s, but what I know from the second one is that, again, it's the public support. Public support is key, but you have to work on that. You can't just, you should support, we have to engage public, engage the supporters as well as the opponents of the death penalty. So we organize nationwide regional discussions on the topic and then we kind of make it easier and then talk go away in its own way rather than compelling the, you can't do that.

That's really clear. Thank you so much, Ambassador. If I may, I'll move on to Ambassador Swallow, because Sierra Leone formally abolished the death penalty in October 2021, and you became the 23rd African nation to do so. So I'm wondering how the decision by Sierra Leone to abolish the death penalty was influenced, perhaps, by other African nations who came before you.

Thank you very much. Let me start by saying thank you to everybody for organizing this and also to the Interregional Tax Force for all their efforts from inception to date. And thank you for this question. In the case of Sierra Leone, it was many, many issues, not just the African states influence. We cannot dispense with their influence, but it was not the main driving force. So for Sierra Leone, for many decades, in Sierra Leone, it was not only a criminal justice issue, it was part of the wider legacy of colonial law, political instability, and the misuse of power by successive governments. So our history reminds us about why abolition matters. So if you go to our history, you will see we can recall that they had trials and executions in 1975, in 1989, also secret killings in 1992, and finally in 1998. So these moments left deep wounds in our national history. And so I would say Sierra Leone's decision really was various things. First and foremost, it was a sovereign national decision. Though it was encouraged by the positive example of other African countries, pressure from local and international civil society groups also helped. But the main driver was political will and public acceptance. The president then took a progressive position, recognizing that the death penalty is irreversible and that in Thailand's history, it has been used in circumstances raising serious concerns about political repression and fairness of trials. I recall when it was time for actual abolition, because we have it in our constitution, so we had to find a way around to make sure, because if you want to amend the constitution, you have to go by referendum, so we had to amend all the other legislations to make sure that we abolish the death penalty in another way. So for us then, as he was saying, public pressure. I was the president of the bar association by then. And we did a position paper to the attorney general highlighting all the reasons why we should abolish death penalty. We worked with death penalty project, advocate, and the British High Commission. And they showed examples of why it is important. And for example, the irreversible nature. There was a case of a lady, Aminata, I remember Advocate was pushing that. She killed her husband during a domestic abuse altercation and she was sentenced to death. And so because of our moratorium, she was held on there for a while until sometime it was commuted downwards to life imprisonment. But all of that as well, we're not saying the African countries also did not inspire it. So it's all together, like all together. So because all these other states, for example, in the West African region, we had Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, all of them had abolished. So For us, they showed that the removal of the death penalty does not weaken the state, rather it strengthens the rule of law. So Sierra Leone saw that this regional momentum was important. And also, having all these other African states having abolished the death penalty also showed our citizens, our parliaments, and our institutions that abolition was not a foreign concept imposed from outside. It was increasingly an African position rooted in dignity, restorative justice, and respect for life. We were also influenced by our engagement with the United Nations Human Rights Council under the Universal Periodic Review. So during our UPR engagement, a number of states recommended that we fully abolish the death penalty. Sierra Leone accepted these recommendations, and this helped translate the international dialogue into domestic reforms. So in summary, Sierra Leone's decision was not driven solely by the example of other African countries. Their experience, though, contributed to a broader regional and international conversation But the decisive factor was political leadership at home. Sierra Leone was influenced by our own determination to ensure that past abuses would not be repeated. The civil society engagements, our engagements with the United Nations human rights system, and then the regional shifts from capital punishment.

Thank you so much. That's very clear. So in October 2021, you made this very big step, but 23 years For 23 years before then, there was a de facto moratorium, as you alluded to. And I don't think your last execution was maybe 1998. So do you think that you need that practical step of a moratorium or even a de facto moratorium to get to the abolition stage?

Yes, definitely, because for the death penalty to go through, you need public acceptance. And having a moratorium before that creates evidence-based and factual proof that the death penalty does not, having it in place does not reduce the crime rate, having it in place does not deter crimes. It shows that actually stopping the executions has its own contributions to fairness and the justice system. So a moratorium can be a very, very powerful tool towards abolition of the death penalty.

Thank you, Ambassador. And from one country that had a de facto moratorium to the next one, because Lebanon, of course, Ambassador, also, prior to their historic decision this summer to abolish the death penalty, also had a de facto moratorium. for two decades maybe. Tell us what's behind this historic decision that was just made this past August.

Thank you, Shereen, and thanks to the Interregional Task Force for organizing this very important event. And I must say I'm very pleased here to share Lebanon's experience, to shed some light on my country's most recent decision to abolish the death penalty. A development that Lebanon is so proud of. This step, which further protects and promotes the human rights regime, was taken amid exceptional circumstances in Lebanon and a very complicated security context. A context that is undermining and challenging our collective understanding of a rules-based international order with Israeli egregious aggression on Lebanon. I believe Lebanon's decision was both the culmination of a long national effort and a deliberate choice about the kind of state we are seeking to rebuild. One with the authority to protect society and punish crime, but with the conviction that this authority must itself be subject to limits. That choice is at the heart of our efforts to strengthen state authority. A strong state must be capable of enforcing the law, but strength cannot be measured by the extent of its coercive powers alone. It also resides in the independence of the courts, the integrity of its institutions, and its willingness to be held accountable. Several considerations inform this development. First, the right to life places a fundamental limit on the state's authority to punish. A person convicted of a grave crime must answer for it, but conviction does not extinguish every claim to human dignity. Second, every justice system is fallible. Evidence may be unreliable. Confessions may be coerced. An execution makes an error of judgment incapable of remedy. Whatever confidence we place in our courts, we cannot ask that confidence to bear the weight of infallibility. Third, the claim that capital punishment is a uniquely effective deterrent has not been established. For someone contemplating a crime, the prospect of being identified, apprehended, and convicted is more consequential than the severity of punishment they believe they can escape. None of this diminishes the gravity of heinous crimes, nor the suffering of victims or their families. They are entitled to truth, accountability, and justice. Punishment must remain proportionate, and society must be protected. Abolition affirms that they can be fulfilled without execution. Let me add here that this change was only made possible as a result of the culmination of decades of sustained advocacy by civil society and a concerted effort by parliamentarians and public institutions. Obviously, on August 11, 2026, the Lebanese Parliament voted to abolish the death of the abolishment of the death penalty. But the proposal was submitted to the Parliament in October 2025. As known for us, the Lebanese, as Walid Slybilo, Walid and his wife, and Bogarit were civil activists and abolitionists since 1983 during the civil war. The proposal drew support across parliamentary blocks, the parliament enacted, the government endorsed, but the lesson for us is that we have institutions which responded to that civil service advocacy. International engagement was also a major player here, or played an important role. That accompanied our national efforts. Lebanon's vote in favor of the GA's resolutions in 2020, 2022, and 2024 reflected the evolution of our position and encouraged exchanges with states and organizations pursuing the same objective. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Ambassador. And I think what probably strikes us all here is that you made this decision in the midst of an armed conflict, in the midst of a serious economic crisis and other crises, political crises and others in your country. So I'm sure everyone here is also wondering about that, that context, because that's often a time when we see countries go the other way. And it's often an excuse that we hear from countries who don't want to go through with abolishing the death penalty. So what would you tell them about what a decision like this can do to actually help a country?

I believe Frank spoke about safeguards in his intervention. And the purpose of a safeguard is to hold when it is tested. If the protection owed to human rights depends on favorable circumstances, it offers little assurance when people and institutions are most vulnerable. Lebanon abolished capital punishment while its security environment remained profoundly difficult. That gives the decision much of its significance. We could not make the protection of rights contingent upon the return of stability. The commitments we uphold during a crisis help determine the kind of state we want to rebuild. Lebanon knows the pressures that conflict places on a state and its institutions. Our people have experienced repeated displacement, the destruction of homes and livelihoods, and the loss of family members. The demand for protection is urgent, and public authorities have a clear duty to respond. The question is how that protection can be made effective and enduring. It requires law enforcement, sound investigations, independent courts, and the consistent enforcement of their decisions. These are the foundations of security in which people can place their trust. The threat of an irreversible punishment cannot make good their absence. For Lebanon as well, this is inseparable from the restoration of legitimate state authority. Abolition places a limit on the power to punish. It removes executions from the penalties available to courts, including within military justice. Lebanon has thus relinquished a punishment previously retained even for offenses connected with national security. That is a substantial commitment for a country facing serious threats. It establishes that the duty to defend society, however pressing, does not confer an unrestricted power over life. But there is also an international dimension to this choice. We have long placed our trust in multilateralism and in law as a shield of protection. We insist that sovereignty must be respected, that civilians be protected, and that legal obligations cannot simply be set aside for political, military, or security convenience. A country that invokes those principles strengthens its standing when it accepts their discipline and the exercise of its own authority. Abolition gives a domestic expression Through that commitment, it demonstrates our willingness to accept a binding restraint on state power, even when circumstances make its expansion politically expedient. Lebanon's accession for the Anti-Personal Landmine Convention on the 1st of May 2026 offers a related example. The prohibition of this category of weapon and the abolition of the death penalty concern different legal frameworks, yet Each reflects a deliberate judgment that the protection of human life warrants renouncing certain means, including where security is at stake. For a country living with the enduring consequences of explosive contamination, that judgment is far from abstract. Thank you.

Thank you so much and congratulations again. And thank you to all the panelists. Hopefully you can stay for the question and answer session that's to come. But one thing that I heard from every single one of the ambassadors here is the importance of civil society when states are considering a moratorium when they're considering abolition. So that's what makes this next panel also very important. And I'd like to introduce them right now. So this panel is going to be talking about good practices and experiences from the point of view of civil society and from those who have researched this. So it's a pleasure to introduce Mr. Parvez Jabbar, the co-founder of Death Penalty Project, and Ms. Carolyn Hoyle, professor at the Center for Criminology at Oxford University. And Professor Hoyle, perhaps I could start with you. As someone who has spent, I think, more than 20 years researching the death penalty, what can this kind of research tell us about the state's rationales for continuing to use the death penalty, and also perhaps why they may eventually decide to abolish it?

Thank you, Shireen, and thank you for the invitation to come here and for all of you in the room coming to hear these presentations, which have been very inspiring, I must say. To your question, there are, of course, moral and philosophical arguments at play in defending capital punishment. But I think in political debate, there are two empirical claims that do much of the work in supporting retention. The first is that the death penalty is necessary as a deterrent. The second is that there is a strong public appetite for capital punishment, which Governments cannot safely disregard. Over more than two decades of research, I have found that neither of those claims withstands critical, careful scrutiny. I will start with public opinion. Over many years, I've been involved in research, much of it with Paveze and the Death Penalty Project, on attitudes to the death penalty in countries including Indonesia, Taiwan, Kenya, Zimbabwe. And the consistent lesson of this research is that people simply, when they're asked to support or oppose the death penalty, and what they say tells us actually very little. When initially, support will be very high. But it is often shallow, poorly informed and highly contingent. When people are presented with realistic cases, they rarely choose the death penalty as an appropriate punishment. When they are offered long-term imprisonment as an alternative, or when they are told about wrongful convictions or the absence of evidence of deterrence, support falls dramatically. So Indonesia, for example, 38% of those who initially said they supported the death penalty said in the end that they would favour abolition if it was shown to be more effective a deterrent than long-term imprisonment. So the broader conclusion from reliable, from nuanced research is important. It's that public support for retention is not the same thing as public resistance to abolition. And the evidence shows that publics will tolerate abolition. So in Kenya, where we worked, almost two thirds of those who said that they favored the death penalty indeed said that they would accept abolition if it was government policy. And historically, of course, as most people in this room realize, abolition has usually been led by political or judicial leadership rather than demanded by the public. The public subsequently accommodates itself to that change. Now, the second rationale I mentioned was deterrence. And here, in fact, although it's harder to do deterrence research, the evidence is even clearer. In large, very robust studies of the relationship between, for example, murder offenses and punishments, there is simply no rigorous research that can demonstrate that capital punishment has a greater deterrent effect than long-term imprisonment. But we wanted to know what of more economically motivated offenses, are those deterred by the harshest of punishments? And so we conducted a large empirical study in Indonesia in the past three years. was a study of drug traffickers, including interviews with many hundreds of people on death row in Indonesia. And this research reached exactly the same conclusion. We looked at their pathways into offending that were shaped by economic precarity, by relationships, by coercion, by deception, et cetera, and they weren't shaped by any rational calculation assumed by deterrence theories. So the findings confirm that capital drug laws don't dismantle cartels. They don't create a rational calculus of fear that is capable of stopping the flow of narcotics. Instead, they prey upon the structural vulnerabilities of the nation's most popular, most marginalized populations. So the flip side, though, of your question is, well, if that's all the case, why do countries actually move towards abolition. And we've heard some of these stories. And of course, partly they do it because they realize deterrence isn't a thing. They realize it's not a persuasive argument. They realize that the public will go along and follow the government when it leads. They also recognize the changing landscape of international law, which has progressively restricted capital punishment and strengthened the legal constraints about its use. As has already been mentioned, the other concern is the increasingly powerful force of the fear of irreversible error. This really does persuade people. No criminal justice system around the world has succeeded in eliminating wrongful conviction or, indeed, in eliminating arbitrariness. And death row exonerations, as was mentioned before, have contributed directly to moratoria and abolition. Here in the States, that's happened, but it's happened elsewhere. So I think the most importantly, though, abolition does not require governments to wait for public opinion to shift. I think that's a message that we have to get out. And principled politicians can lead, and the public will follow. And as our friends here in Mongolia, Lebanon, and Sierra Leone know only too well, If the government leads, the people will come along with them.

Thank you. It's such an important message. Professor, I meant to ask you how you create the political and social conditions to make abolition possible, but if I may, because we heard very strong interventions here from two countries, Mongolia and Lebanon, for example, that talked about completely different political and social conditions. So, do you have to create a certain condition or is there something else? What is the magic sauce?

Yes, I think, wow, what a question. I think the representative from Mongolia was right when he indicated that abolition is not just a one-off decision. It doesn't just happen from nowhere. So yes, the simple answer is yes, one has to create a momentum, one has to create the conditions whereby a government can lead, or occasionally a constitutional court can find the death penalty to be unconstitutional. So the moments of abolition are the end of a much longer process. And so the question really is, what does that process look like? And an obvious answer, it will look different in each country. But if I give you my personal response to this is the work which Pavey and I did in Zimbabwe in trying to provide expert assistance to the people working on the ground. And we worked in Zimbabwe for over 10 years before Zimbabwe abolished the death penalty in December 2024, at the initial invitation of the Swiss embassy, in fact. And when we worked there, we worked with local organizations in efforts to try to encourage abolition and to provide the evidence necessary for that to happen. And what was important is we developed a process of transnational advocacy, a network, indeed, of transnational advocacy, which included international expertise from us, but that supported, it certainly did not displace, local ownership. And I think the representative from Sierra Leone was quite clear on this issue. It has to be about the local, the national country taking the lead. So, the first thing to say is international law helps this process, but it's not enough on its own. It's a necessary but insufficient condition. What you need really is the practical task of working out, of diagnosing, if you like, what the conditions in that country are like, where the concerns are about abolition. And so, when we When we started our work in Zimbabwe, we really wanted to try to find out what it was that they were most concerned about. So we have to understand why a particular government retains the death penalty, who in that country needs persuading, what they believe prevents reform, and which institutions can actually deliver that change. So when we started, there'd been a lot of work done through Zimbabwe's new constitution that came in 2013. to restrict the death penalty. There also hadn't been an execution. You mentioned before abolitionist de facto countries. There hadn't been an execution there since 2005. We knew that the president himself was a longstanding opponent of the death penalty, and yet abolition didn't automatically follow. Something else was needed. The government still remained concerned that the public supported retention and might react badly to reform. And I think that leads to a second lesson that Zimbabwe taught us, which is that research can change the political conditions for abolition. So rather than us simply asserting that public opinion should not determine a matter which is really about human rights, we wanted to test the government's assumption by conducting a large and representative survey of the public. And as elsewhere, when respondents learned more about the realities of the administration of capital punishment, when they became informed, the initial support declined significantly, such that the vast majority said they would accept abolition if the government went down that path. We then did something we hadn't done much before, which was to interview opinion leaders. 42 opinion leaders across Zimbabwe, people like politicians, trade unions leaders, religious leaders, journalists, et cetera, and 90% of those supported abolition. So we knew there was something moving there. We knew that we had an audience for the messages we wanted to take there. And in what was for me, at least, a first for my scholarship, the president agreed to write the foreword to a report we did on this research. And in that foreword, he expressed an appetite for abolition. He said that he hoped Zimbabwe would abolish. And at that point, the research became not just an academic exercise of attitudes, a survey of attitudes, but it was an invention in the policy process. It gave government and parliamentarians evidence that the feared public backlash might actually be less formidable than they had assumed. And that brings me, I think, to the third lesson from Zimbabwe, which is that For change, you really need relationships to be developed and you need political trust. So the evidence doesn't just walk into Parliament on its own. And we worked with local civil society, with parliamentarians, with the Ministry of Justice, lawyers, diplomats, et cetera. And we developed a private member's bill. In fact, the VAEs helped to write the private member's bill. And this provided a route capable of attracting support across party lines. But I think the most important thing, and as I mentioned before, the representative from Sierra Leone made this a really important point in her presentation, that abolition requires local ownership. So you can't come in with instructions from outside. And in Zimbabwe, what we saw and what we were really pleased about was that international standards were translated by local Zimbabweans into arguments that drew on their own history, their own culture, their own criminal justice system, their own experiences and priorities. So we didn't have a situation of universal human rights on the one hand and local legitimacy on the other. These things spoke to each other. They were mutually reinforcing. And that, I think, is the main message, really, that the task is not to go in there as an international expert and to export abolition, depending on how it's been done in another jurisdiction. It's to build those political, those legal and social platforms on which the domestic actors can make abolition their own.

Thank you. That's clear. I feel like I can speak to you all day about this, Professor, but I will not abuse my moderating privileges and move to Lord Javahar from the Death Penalty Project, which is an international legal action NGO driven by a belief that the death penalty is cruel and often discriminates against the poorest and most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of our society. And I also know that the organization has spent three decades working on the death penalty across 30 countries, and some of our panelists have already discussed your work and you in particular, Olugbaju, for all the efforts that you've made. So my first question to you, how can you harness the strategic legal challenges to the death penalty?

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. What is very nice about actually just sitting and listening and being the last person is you see very much this kind of broad partnership, as we're talking about now, just across this table. References are made to issues, people, organisations. So in a sense, this is part of the success story, actually, sharing it. Just to your question then, when we talk about strategic litigation, First and foremost, the easiest piece of litigation you can do is bring a challenge to the death penalty per se. It's the easiest thing, but actually it's the most difficult. It's very, very hard to do. And in fact, countries very rarely abolish by way of constitutional courts. Obviously, South Africa is a great example and one I would commend people to read, but it's a rare occurrence. So if you can't do it in one full swoop as one big sort of challenge. The question is, what else can you do? I mean, reference is made, of course, ultimately, and we all know this around the table here, political leadership is the key, is the driving force, and others then join that sort of force, as it were. So let me just mention two ways that I think legal work, litigation, strategy can be quite useful. The first, obviously, is strategic litigation or litigation for individual cases. We spent our whole working lives, decades, representing individuals who were facing the death penalty. That's very, very useful because obviously cases help to identify issues and problems with the criminal justice system. By doing that in individual cases, it can help the process to abolition. My own example in the UK, in 1965 when we suspended the death penalty before I was born just and then abolished in 1969 when I was born one of the most powerful reasons for abolition was because of the rise in wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice juries and trials refused to convict people who may have been guilty because they didn't want them to be executed. So that kind of litigation helps to sensitize the public, it helps to raise issues about how the criminal justice system doesn't work. The second, I think, important area is strategic litigation, broad constitutional challenges to aspects of the death penalty. And what we have seen and what we have done is we've looked at the issue of the death penalty We can't challenge it per se. So then we said, how can we challenge aspects of it? How can we find ways to restrict its use, its scope, its application? That has been hugely successful in creating conditions, I think, for abolition. For example, challenges to the mandatory automatic imposition of the death penalty on conviction, challenges to death row delay, death row phenomenon, issues that actually cut across all jurisdictions, Commonwealth jurisdictions, international jurisdictions, and we've done this. So we've managed to limit where countries and courts can impose the death penalty. By doing that, what you do is you reduce the number of people who are sentenced to death. Suddenly there are no people on death row. And I can give you the experience of the Caribbean, and I can give you the experience of Uganda, Malawi, Kenya, all of these challenges to the death penalty have reduced death rows. to the extent there are no people on death row in the Caribbean whatsoever. And at one stage there were hundreds of people. Once you've done that, you essentially create a space for a further broader dialogue. So I think the process of litigation, the process of challenging constitutionality issues, not only provides that picture, but it also tests, I think, for that jurisdiction. the issue of the death penalty. Sometimes courts are slow to make decisions because they're worried about the political leadership. Sometimes the political leadership want the courts to do their work. So it's a very useful tactic, one to save lives, but B, I think, to create the conditions for abolition.

Thank you for that. And Lord Jhabbar, how do you make sense of countries that don't execute, but they also won't abolish the death penalty in law?

That is our big issue and we've spent many times talking with various missions on this. Can I just say, there is a report which you can find that we produced and presented to the UN at the end of last year and to the Council of Europe earlier this week, which was done between the two organizations, which is trying to exactly make sense of this issue about what we call abolitionist de facto countries, countries that have the death penalty but don't execute it. I mean, it essentially sits between retention and abolition. But what we know is that it's more than that. It's not as simple as a in between because actually many of these countries still have the death penalty. Many of these countries still sentence people to death. Many of these countries retain and broaden the use of the death penalty, but they don't execute. So there seems to be a political decision not to execute, but to keep the death penalty. And I think this is really, really important because the history of abolitionist de facto as a term was, as some people have mentioned, it was a step on the road to abolition. And when it was first coined some 40 years ago by the UN and started to be used in its quinquennial reports, what it was meant to do was to try to promote and push those countries that have stopped executing to then encourage them to get to the final position. And I think it did that. But our research that we did managed to sort of uncover that what it now does is provided a new space for some countries to say, we're ADF, which is abolitionist de facto. We don't execute. So we're in a good-- we want some credit for that. And we should receive plaudits, and countries do. But they then say, well, actually, this is quite a good-- this is a good camp to be in because We're not executing, so we're not being criticized, but we haven't abolished, but we can get all the benefits. And the way that I think we described it in our report was to say that what you see is you see a different language being used in different arenas. So at the international level, at the UN, at UPR reporting, Council of Europe, what you see a country saying, we don't have the death penalty, we haven't executed, we have a moratoria of some sorts. and of course that is to be praised and encouraged. And then domestically to their own audience, and obviously there are people here who can speak about this better than I, but domestically at their own audience, they say to the public, we have the death penalty, and if we need to use it, we will use it. So in fact, what they're doing is satisfying different groups and there are different agendas. So what we say is, and I think this is a very good time for the conversation that we're having, is what we need to do is encourage these some, there are 42 states currently. We need to encourage these states to move to full abolition and we need to be really strong and clear to say that abolitionist de facto is not abolition. It isn't executing but it's not abolition and if you want to be an abolitionist then you really need to move to abolition and one of the ways that we try to sort of identify the positive move is obviously perhaps establishing a formal moratoria maybe removing everybody from death row, no longer having the death sentence imposed in cases. And one other area, which I think is relevant to our discussions today, is to get these countries to vote in favor of the resolution. The resolution, I think, sets a condition, a statement that says, this is where we are politically. And that, I think, creates the space for broader dialogue. So I think that's a really important message to say. And if I may, Shirin, just to say to everybody around this table that believes in abolition, that wants to see further countries move, we should encourage our other member states to try to vote in favour of the resolution this year. It's very, very important. It doesn't change much, but I think it changes something up there in the thinking and creates that opportunity, I think, for further progress.

Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense because as you both said, and as everyone has said, this is a process. It's not just one step. So it's part of the process is the death penalty resolution. Also, what you're saying is peer pressure works, so everyone needs to... This is the one time when we tell everyone to increase their peer pressure. I think that's what we're hearing today from everyone, the importance of the community saying that this is what needs to happen. Thank you so much to both of you for your interventions. Now I will hand it to the floor. We have some interventions and also if you'd like to ask questions as well, you can put up your hand, but first we will go to the Permanent Representative of Costa Rica. floor is yours.

Good afternoon to all. Thank you for allowing me to speak on this subject because it's very dear to me. I bet you if I ask all of you which one was the first country to abolish the death penalty, hardly anyone would guess. It's Venezuela. You know who the second one was? San Marino. And the third one, yes, it was Costa Rica. So, what we have to do is historical analysis of why these three countries develop what they develop, but why don't we go all the way back in history and see why it happened. Costa Rica abolished the penalty, next year will be 150 years ago. Venezuela in 1863, San Marino 1865, and Costa Rica in 1877. Interesting, the reasons as to why they were abolished. They don't sound much different, except for one, which I will challenge Oxford University to analyze. I'm a professor also, I have a PhD in mathematics, so here we go. One of all, one of them is the respect for human life. Good. Check on that one. Second one, possibility of rehabilitation. Check on two. Irreversibility of judicial errors. Check on three. Public appeal for clemency. Maybe. But these were the truths that Mexico lived shortly after also. And one that I don't think has had enough analysis is the humanitarian consideration of the people left behind for the death penalty. The mother, the father, the brothers, the sisters, the children. And I am willing to bet that if you look mathematically at the level of crimes and on social behavior from that family and compare it with a sample, you will find probably that there is a result and there is a difference with the death penalty. And that's an important fact. That's a very, very important fact that has been overlooked by everything I have heard regarding this topic in this room and before. I would like to continue by explaining a little bit of what happened in in 1877, historically. There was an uprising threat on the president and one of the corporals was found guilty and he was going to be put to a firing squad. Pretty much like the firing squad that's coming up very soon on national television. He was tried and sentenced to death. His wife, Emilia Solozano Alfaro, The wife of Tomas Guardia, the president at the time, did what all women do, well, most of them anyway, encouraged Costa Rican women to petition for clemency. So what worked back then was women power in 1877 in Latin America. Doesn't that make you think a little bit? I mean, it's amazing that a Latin American woman, here comes the advertising, the Latin American woman, just like Rebecca Green Span, took up the arms against the death penalty and basically moved the whole country about. Now, we talk a lot, but we need to be a little bit more concise. And perhaps the discussion should be more on what have we learned in 150 years, and is our society more cruel than 150 years ago? Thank you.

Thank you, Ambassador. And now we can go to the Deputy PR of Australia. The floor is yours.

Thank you, and I'm not going to go through the history of Australia abolishing the death penalty, just because it's actually pretty sordid. But to say, of course, we're here because we oppose the death penalty in all circumstances for all people, and I might just leave it at that. But I am really, today's discussion is really important, and I think to be able to hear from you know, Member States that have recently introduced changes and just the diversity of those States, I think, is just evidence that this is not just a small number. I think we're now hearing, obviously, in terms of the 170 States, but also acknowledge the 42 that we need to keep working on. But I think the evidence that you've also brought to the table is really critical. And I think the question I have is twofold. One is we're also a signatory to the second optional protocol, which of course places obligations on us in terms of, I suppose, what I would call advocacy. But I think also that the evidence base around deterrence that we often hear is sort of fallible. So then the question is, in this forum, we have an international political platform here. Obviously, we can encourage others to vote for the resolution, but how do we push back against some of the narratives that we hear around deterrence and and I suppose ensure that we are having conversations that often I have to say elevate a pitch level. So we really do need the really strong kind of arguments. What do they look like? How do we ensure that we're having the right conversations around the table when we're countering that kind of evidence base?

Thank you so much for that direct question. I feel like it should be answered directly.

Go ahead. I will start the ball rolling, but I think that Pervaze might want to come on to this. The deterrence question is quite a difficult one, because deterrence as an argument is quite intuitive. Whenever we fly to south-east Asia, if we take the drug offence, we are warned on the aeroplane that, if we take drugs into the country, we could face the death penalty. And we always say, well, yeah, that would deter me, right? Okay. So it's not that deterrence is just a fallacy. There is a concept of deterrence. And some people are deterred by certain punishments and others are not. The two main bits of evidence that I was trying to present in record short time, the research shows that people are deterred by by the threat of being apprehended, caught and having to go to court. It's not the actual punishment that does have a deterrent effect, it's the threat of being caught. So that's the first thing. And the quantum of punishment doesn't make any difference to that when you get at the higher levels, whether it's a long-term prison sentence or the death penalty. So I think the argument is to be subtlest to say, look, it's not that people are oblivious to the threats, some people, it's that they're not deterred by capital punishment any more than by another serious punishment. So countries could be brave enough to take that off the table and still be able to make a deterrence argument, but the main thing is it's about being caught. The other thing is that the very people who are likely to commit certain types of offences, such as drug trafficking, which Australia has had a relationship with south-east Asia on for some time, are the most important. You or I are not likely to be tapped on the shoulder by somebody who wants us to traffic drugs, right? We don't mix in those circles. I'm making assumptions here, but I'm sure they're correct. We're not likely to find ourselves economically precarious, needing to feed our children, have no other means of finding the resources. We are not likely to need to be deterred. Deterrence theory is not about you and I. Deterrence theory is about those very people who are the most vulnerable to being brought into a criminal enterprise because they're precarious, because they have certain needs, because they are poorly educated and can't find work in other spheres. They're the people and they're the very people who won't be deterred because they won't understand the laws, they won't necessarily understand what punishments there are, they won't understand the nexus between those two things. and they're desperate. And the same is true of murder offences with some exceptions. So I think people need a more, you know, we live in a world of social media where fewer words matter. We put out few words, but sometimes academic research is about thinking we need a few more words to explain this. So I think that we need to become a little more fluent at discussing this with governments who feel the intuitive appeal.

Carolyn has raised the issue of the importance of research and how we analyse it. The other add-on to that is the issue of having an honest discussion, coupled with education. That is what is missing when we have these debates. People and Governments make statements that are not backed by evidence, and even when the there's evidence to refute what is being said, they don't choose to use it. And I think government taking leadership is very, very important. We talk about the risk to individuals and crime. What general public are normally interested in are how do they feed their family, how do they find a job, how do they get to work, et cetera. They're not worried about crime. They don't think having the death penalty, they don't think about the death penalty. And when Zimbabwe abolished the death penalty, I remember the Minister of Justice making a statement and he said it's clear to us that actually having the death penalty has no effect in reducing crime we need to do other things and we're back to that same bit all criminal justice policies must incorporate this idea that it's not the death penalty it's actually education of young it's how you deal with those who go into prison and come back out it's a much broader criminal justice policy discussion. And I think we must try harder not to just allow that one sort of statement to go in, which is it's a deterrent and therefore it's okay. And I think if governments were honest, they know that. And I think it is that it's the politics of the death penalty that becomes the issue.

Thank you. I hope that answered your question. Perhaps you can connect after the event as well. Straight to the permanent representative of Germany, floor is yours. had to leave. All right. Well, we do have a question here. Please go ahead. That's you. Okay.

Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Ana Alvarez. I am the legal advisor of the permanent mission of Spain. I just wanted to take the floor very briefly to highlight the work of the International Commission against the Death Penalty. which probably you all know works promoting the abolition of the death penalty and the moratorium of executions, and was created in 2010 with the sponsoring at that time of Switzerland and Spain, and the sponsors have grown until 24 states. And I want to highlight it today, not only because of the important work that they do, but because its president, Navid Kiyavasi, has been awarded today with the Peace Nobel Prize. And I think that's very good news for all the causes that she promotes, and also for international law and the international community today. So that's very brief. And I just, on a personal note, I just want to to say that I was posted in Zimbabwe just a few days, a few years before the abolition. And I remember the campaign and taking part in some of those events with civil society, with personalities. And it was very interesting times. And it's even more interesting when you realize that it's a success story, that it led to the abolition. So thank you very much. It was Everything you were saying during your presentation reminds me of those discussions at that time. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much for your intervention. Any more questions or interventions from the floor? Yes, go ahead, sir.

Good afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, and thank you very much. It is an honor and my humbleness to be part of the community that believe in the human dignity and human life. Now, Madam moderator, in the beginning, you've mentioned that 17 countries have carried out death sentence in 2025. Sorry, my name is Ariya Torotbekov. I represent the permanent mission of Kyrgyzstan. So I just wanted to clarify that. You've mentioned that 17 countries have carried out death sentence in 17 countries have carried out death sentence in 2020. I've looked at that list of the countries, and it's a very diverse group of countries. I mean, you got global south, global north, eastern hemisphere, western hemisphere, and as an honorable representative of Costa Rica has mentioned, there is a certain country that is planning on live streaming their death sentence in the coming days. How do you convince those states not to carry out death sentence? I mean, they will claim national sovereignty. They will claim religious legitimacy. They will claim the desire not to be interfered in their internal affairs. Is there a need to talk to them? And if there is a need to talk to them, will it be fruitful? Will it have any results, positive results? And how do you even convince those states to do away with the death sentence? And the second question, just a pure human thought, the Kyrgyz Republic, we have abolished death sentence in 2007, but recently we've had three horrible cases of crimes perpetrated against children, underage children, and the population rose up, they demanded blood. And as you've mentioned, certain political elites, the government officials, they can convince, they can bring the abolition to the national framework, but sometimes people can convince. We almost, in my country, we almost had a referendum on whether we need to bring back the death sentence because of the emotional charge, right? And my question ultimately would be, is there a need for the emotional intelligence betterment in the population? The Honorable DPP has mentioned education. Yeah, but could you perhaps elaborate what sort of education? Because I don't see classes in kindergarten or high school or middle school saying and stating unequivocally that death sentence is bad. How do we approach that topic? Or is the concept of eye for an eye as mentioned in Code of Hammurabi still relevant up until 2026? Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Two great questions, quite honestly. I do want to also see if our first panelists have any reaction, but maybe while you're thinking about it. And just to summarize the two questions, one was, how do you convince the unconvincible, and especially when we're living in a day and age where a high official in the United States claims that, you know, someone will be executed via livestream. You know, we're living in these times right now, this isn't theoretical. And the second question about public awareness, what does that actually to instill this idea of abolishment in the public.

Well, let me just say this about the global picture. You mentioned here in the beginning, you know, 170 countries, either abolitionist or abolitionist de facto. That leaves 32 countries that still have the death penalty. If you compare that to 50 years ago, when I started looking at the stats and so on, it was the other way around. So there's been huge progress, massive progress. This session is called success stories. That is a success story. It's really, really important to mention. And then when you dig down a little deeper, of those 32 countries, when we talk about the number of executions, the majority of executions, forgive me, I don't have the stat right in front of me, something like 80% of executions happen in three or four countries. China, Iran, Egypt. I mean, we're talking, so what you're seeing in terms of the other countries, you're absolutely right to say all these countries have it, but what you're seeing is that the number of executions, all the death sentences are very, very low, okay? The last country in Europe to still have the death penalty is Belarus. Belarus was very close to abolition a few years ago. Obviously, with the crisis, that discussion has come to an end, but even the numbers we were talking about, one every couple of years. So they go on the list, but actually they're not the same as China. They're not the same as Iran. So I think that becomes, when you try to sort of work out and map out how you deal with each of these countries, and you're right, it's across the board. They're countries from Asia, Africa, and so on. That is where, as the representative from Sierra Leone very rightly said, when I started working on this in the early 1990s, It was very much a Western European story of the movement towards abolition as you went into 2000s and so on. The stories now are more, if you look at Africa, it's an African story. Zambia has abolished, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe. These are not, they're not following, if I can put it this way, some country in Europe. They're actually talking about their own lessons. So the method where you're working, how you're working, what the issues are. I think you have to map it out slightly differently. We can talk in broader terms, but you do have to map it out. And then on the education point, again, I understand the point, but whether schools should have death penalty in their curriculum is not for me to answer. But what I can say, education of the public is really missing. That's what I'm talking about when I talk about education. It's not something that people understand. It's not something that people feel is is a very salient issue for them. So when we talk about education, the information that comes out, one example I can give is in a situation where there's a heinous crime committed, if you look at the death penalty support, it goes up huge. It goes up in a massive way. But that's because of that particular time that you're looking at. When we abolished the death penalty in the UK, the majority was still in favor. I think the latest stats in the US were 50% or just under a few years ago. So support goes up and down. The really important bit is to try to give people information and share experiences.

Thank you. Ambassador Swallow, I don't want to put you on the spot, but you spoke so strongly about education and about how the abolition and that sort of movement was so intrinsically linked to Sierra Leonean society and history and culture. Could you maybe expand on that?

So much. And as I'm doing that, I'll go back to his question about convincing the unconvincible. I think all of us have spoken here about the most important thing is you owning the process. We cannot come from outside and try to convince you that this is right. So the ones that are saying, no, we're not gonna go for the abolitionists right now, they need, the people need to own the process. For example, in Sierra Leone, I'll always give the Sierra Leone example. And the people were not ready at the time. We noticed all the killings and everything, but then we had workshops, we had engagements. we try to educate the people that this type of punishment is irreversible and when people see the consequences of that and the Injustice that is served when you cannot undo something that has been done it starts to to tick something in them and it's not a short term to answer your question it's not a short term thing it's not that We're going to convince them now. It's not an immediate answer. It's a long-term process. So you start by educating everybody about the dangers of death penalty and how the irreversible nature of it is really terrible. And then also, we also have to instill in people the value of human life and that it's not be we're not abolitionists because we're indifferent to crime but we believe that justice must be effective, it must be fair, it must be humane and they're never irreversible where error or abuse is possible. So convincing these people, it's a process, it's a long-term process, we all have to own it and we have to have all the actors on board. I've also said a political will is paramount but then there must be the pressure that should be put on the political will. Like in Sierra Leone, I said we had all the civil society actors, we had the lawyers, we held many workshops, we had community engagements, we went down to the people to explain the effects of what we're doing and that paid off. So I think all of us should just come back to the table and put our hands together and do all of this and maybe they'll see sense. I understand the power of the deterrent argument because this is something that people have owned for decades. They just see if something like this is done, then it will deter some people. But then you will see in examples of countries that had the moratorium, it shows, it's evidence-based that killing does not serve as a deterrent. So maybe the other argument to say the injustice that is done by virtue of wrong convictions. And we all know wrong conviction takes place. Even in these societies, we have a misplaced DNA. We have something like that. The risk of that is enough for us to think twice about it. Thank you.

Thank you for those important points. And thank you to all my panelists today. What an excellent, what a very rich and practical discussion. so honored to have moderated you through it. And for our closing remarks, let me hand over to Her Excellency Ms. Jennifer Fellow, Deputy Permanent Representative of Mexico.

Thank you very much, Sharina. Thank you very much to all for being here on a Friday afternoon. I thank you. I thank as well the panelists and of course the governmental representatives. I think that something that is important is to remind us every day of the value of learning across regions and across disciplines. Each national context is different, but the lessons drawn from one experience can help others to identify possibilities to progress and also to address the debate in a different manner. Our partnership with civil society and academia is essential to this effort. Their engagement also brings the experience, I think, and it is a very central factor as well, of affected individuals directly into the discussion and examine as well practices and understand the challenges and identify pathways to move forward. I think that also today's exchange reflects the essence of multilateralism, listening to one another, seeking to understand different points of view, and learning from our respective experiences. Such dialogue helps us also to build trust. This has been a very complex debate since a long time ago. And I think that it is important to continue our efforts to find common ground, including on issues where differences remain. As Ambassador Gruthe mentioned at the beginning, Mexico and Switzerland will co-facilitate this year's resolution on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty on behalf of the interregional task force. And we will present the text next Wednesday, 30 p.m. And we plan to begin the first reading on Friday, October the 16th. So we warmly invite all delegations to engage actively and constructively in this process, our approach will be guided by a commitment to listen to everyone's concerns and to foster a respectful and inclusive environment for our discussions. We will work towards a resolution that reflects global trends, that acknowledges the challenges that remain, and reaffirm states' obligations under international law. Again, the perspective shared today will be very valuable for that work. And let's carry this spirit towards the negotiation next week. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ambassador. Best of luck for the negotiations. Thank you, everyone, so much for spending your Friday afternoon with us. And thank you, Katerina, and your team as well at the EU and the French missions. Have a great afternoon, everyone.