International Harm Reduction Association – IHRA

Press Release

10 December 2007

IHRA Launch Death Penalty Report

On 10th December 2007 – to coincide with International Human Rights Day
– IHRA released a major report calling for an end to the use of the
death penalty for drug offences around the world. The report concludes
that the on-going execution of drug offenders is a violation of
international human rights law.

The report is entitled ‘The Death Penalty for Drug Offences: A Violation
of International Human Rights Law’ and was written by Rick Lines. It is
the first major report from the HR2 Project– IHRA’s new harm reduction
and human rights monitoring and policy analysis programme. The report
emphasises how the harms faced by people who use drugs do not only
include health harms such as HIV and hepatitis C infections, but also
the effects of repressive law enforcement activities. While the number
of countries practicing capital punishment has steadily decreased over
the past twenty years, this report demonstrates that the number of
countries using the death penalty for drug offences has steadily increased.

Across the world, 133 countries have abolished the death penalty in law
or in practice. However, of the 64 countries that have retained capital
punishment, half of which apply these punishments to drug-related
offences (whether they be drug possession or drug trafficking offences).
In one of the most shocking examples, the Chinese Government celebrates
the United Nation’s ‘International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit
Trafficking’ each year by publicly executing people for drug-related crimes.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) – one
of the main UN human rights treaties – states that the death penalty may
only be applied to the “most serious crimes”. Both the UN Human Rights
Committee and the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or
Arbitrary Executions have stated that drug offences do not constitute
“most serious crimes” – making executions for such offences a violation
of international human rights law.

Commenting on the report launch, Professor Gerry Stimson (IHRA’s
Executive Director) said, “Capital punishment for drug offences is but
one illustration of how human rights have been sacrificed in the name of
the ‘war on drugs’. Unfortunately, the death penalty is not the only
example of such abuses worldwide. Repressive law enforcement practices,
the denial of health services to drug users and the spread of HIV
infection among people who inject drugs, due to lack of access to harm
reduction programmes, are far too common in many countries across the
globe.”

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