Bali Nine executions: Their deaths hurt us all, because they demonstrate the impotence of international law

A country that executes more than zero executes too many

An activist holds candles near portraits of the 'Bali Nine' in Jakarta, Indonesia (AP)

We don’t know the precise circumstances of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran’s deaths. We know that they looked their firing squad square in the eye, electing not to wear blindfolds. If the first shots failed to kill them, they would be finished off by a pistol shot to the head. After ten minutes. Let us hope that these men died quickly and relatively painlessly.

There were at least five reasons why these men should not have been executed, reasons that go beyond the simple fact that the death penalty serves no penological purpose above and beyond a sentence of imprisonment: that there were procedural irregularities in their case; that there are serious allegations of a lack of independent and impartial judiciary; that these men have suffered cruel and inhuman treatment by being on death row for an inordinate period of time; that the death penalty has been continually held not to apply to drugs crimes; and that a constitutional appeal had been accepted by the Indonesian judiciary.

Their deaths hurt us all, because they demonstrate the impotence of international human rights law, a set of norms and institutions that we have developed over the last half-century as a response to gross atrocities and the violation of the dignity of the individual. They demonstrate that despite us living in the language of individual rights, at the end of the day, state sovereignty rules the day.

At the end of the day, all we were left with were diplomatic pleas. What else could have been done? At least from a legal point of view, very little. International law has failed us: Indonesia has effectively cut out from its international obligations compulsory reference to those international judicial bodies which could have interpreted and/or effected an urgent reprieve for these men. These reservations are generally acceptable under international law. And the only bodies that Australia could complain to - the UN General Assembly and/or the Human Rights Council - could possibly “condemn in the strongest terms” the executions. But they - at least as a matter of law - could not have halted them.

Let us hope that their deaths will mobilise the international community to say “enough”. The death penalty is still legal under international human rights law. Enough. Countries can act with effective impunity for violating the most inviolable right one has - their life. Enough. Maybe Australia can be proactive in the international human rights sphere and work with the UN – an organisation it is ‘sick of being lectured to’ – take some leadership and forcefully push for a death penalty-free world.

Two-thirds of the world’s nations have banned it, but this means that one-third haven’t. Amnesty International has reported that at least 607 executions were carried out in 2014, in 22 countries. The worst offenders were Iran (289+), followed by Saudi Arabia (90+) and Iraq (61+). Developed nations kill too: the USA with 35, and Singapore with two. These figures do not include China, the worst offender, which keeps its execution numbers a state secret. We must condemn all these countries equally – a country that executes more than zero executes too many. Many of these deaths received nowhere near the coverage of the ‘Bali 9’: they are the silent statistics in a practice that has no place in a world committed to human rights.

If Chan and Sukumaran’s deaths mobilise the Australian government and the Australian people to advocate for global abolition, then maybe, just maybe, their lives may have not have been lost in vain.

Toby Collis is an Australian international human rights lawyer based in Oxford