‘Inhumane’: Critics slam US vote against UN resolution condemning death penalty

Joe Biden campaigned on ending death penalty and imposed moratorium on federal executions

Human rights campaigners criticised the United States for its vote on Thursday against a United Nations resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty.

A supermajority of nations voted 125-to-37, with 22 abstentions, to support the UN-backed moratorium on capital punishment.

“Any criminal-legal system truly dedicated to the pursuit of justice should recognize the humanity of all who encounter it and not sanction the use of a discriminatory practice that denies individuals their rights, fails to respect their dignity, and stands in stark contrast to the fundamental values of our democratic system of governance,” the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of rights groups, wrote in a letter to president Joe Biden on Tuesday, ahead of the US’s expected no vote.

The group pointed out how since 1973, more than 190 innocent people with death sentences in the US have been exonerated because of mistaken convictions.

The US was joined in its stance at the UN by fellow countries with poor human rights records including Saudi Arabia, North Korea, China and Iran.

Commentators like Austin Sarat, a political science professor and death penalty expert from Amherst College, argued the UN vote does not square with recent statements from the US condemning Iran’s use of the death penalty against human rights protestors.

“We are giving aid and comfort to the very regime whose acts we denounce when that regime carries out its most brutal deeds,” he wrote in Justia.

Survivors of capital punishment also spoke out against the US stance.

“Let us get this death penalty abolition in motion,” Kwame Ajamu, president of Witness to Innocence, who was wrongly convicted as a teen for murder and spent decades on death row, said earlier this week. “If the state of Ohio had its way, I wouldn’t be here to have this conversation.”

The US argued last month, in a message explaining its vote against recommending the UN moratorium go to the full assembly, that international law allows for executions so long as they are carried out fairly.

“The United States urges all States, including supporters of this resolution, to focus their attention toward addressing and preventing human rights violations that may result from the improper imposition and application of capital punishment,” committee adviser Anthony Bestafka-Cruz wrote. “We strongly urge Member States to ensure that they cannot apply capital punishment in an extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary manner.”

The UN moratorium recommendation does not change international law or the individual justice systems of member states, but rather reiterates the stance that has inspired most of the world community to either suspended or outlaw the use of the death penalty.

As The Independent has reported, in the US, the use of the death penalty frequently targets innocent people and racial minorities, and frequently involves inhumane medical errors causing inmates to suffer unnecessarily in the execution chamber.

During the 2020 election, Joe Biden reversed his long history of supporting capital punishment and ran on a promise to seek to end executions in the US.

His administration put a moratorium on federal executions, but has failed to deliver a permanent legislative ban.

“He has courageously put a halt to federal executions in the United States. President Biden is also boldly advancing a criminal justice reform agenda for our country; an agenda that seeks to address the racial disparities that have too often been perpetuated in our criminal justice system given our country’s legacy of slavery,” Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland, wrote in a recent opinion piece.

“Two years after his election to the presidency, it is time for Mr. Biden to bring our UN vote into alignment with the principles and policies upon which he was elected,” he continued.

The Independent and the nonprofit Responsible Business Initiative for Justice (RBIJ) have launched a joint campaign calling for an end to the death penalty in the US. The RBIJ has attracted more than 150 well-known signatories to their Business Leaders Declaration Against the Death Penalty - with The Independent as the latest on the list. We join high-profile executives like Ariana Huffington, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson as part of this initiative and are making a pledge to highlight the injustices of the death penalty in our coverage.