Today's Date:

World and European Day against the Death Penalty - Joint Statement by M. Bernard Kouchner, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, and Mme Rama Yade, Minister of State, Responsible for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights

On this World Day against the Death Penalty, we want to reaffirm France's categorical opposition to this practice whatever the circumstances. It is an attack on human dignity.

The battle for the universal abolition of the death penalty is a priority for our country and for the European Union and Council of Europe, which has just established 10 October as European Day against the Death Penalty. We welcome this initiative.

In February this year, France amended her Constitution to include a ban on the death penalty. Consequently, she has ratified the United Nations Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, whose instrument of ratification was deposited on 2 October in New York by Mme Rama Yade, Minister of State responsible for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights.

The Third World Congress against the Death Penalty was held under the patronage of France in Paris 1-3 February 2007, on the initiative of the voluntary organization "Ensemble contre la peine de mort” ["Together against the death penalty”].

We are delighted to note the declining use of the death penalty in the world. Nevertheless, we still need everyone to mobilize if we are to achieve the goal of securing its universal abolition. We pay tribute to the human rights defenders who, with courage and determination, are fighting on the ground, under at times extremely difficult conditions, and federating initiatives to create a worldwide movement of conscience.

Over the past year, 95 States have signed a declaration against the death penalty at the United Nations General Assembly. This year, countries on every continent will present a draft resolution on a universal moratorium and abolition of the death penalty.

Today, 10 October, France reiterates her appeal to every country still applying the death penalty to abolish it or establish, pending its abolition, a moratorium on executions and death sentences./.