Press Release

18 January 2010 – The United Nations in Mongolia welcome the recent initiative to establish a moratorium on death penalty, with a view to abolish capital punishment in Mongolia.

The UN has continuously called on States to abolish the capital punishment. A general Assembly resolution of 2007 encourages general suspension of death penalty throughout the world. It calls on States which maintain the death penalty to establish a moratorium with a view to abolition, and in the meantime, restrict the number of offenses for which it punishes and to respect the rights of those on death row. It also calls on States which have abolished the death penalty not to reintroduce it. This position is based on a variety of policy grounds, including the impossibility of avoiding irreversible execution of the innocent and the absence of proof that the penalty in fact serves as deterrence to others in respect of future conduct.

In a press statement dated 11 January 2007, the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon recognised the growing trend in the international law and in national practice towards phasing out of the death penalty and encouraged that development. Marking the 20th anniversary of the Death Penalty Optional Protocol which was added to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 1989 with the aim of abolishing the punishment, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said: “Abolishing the death penalty is a difficult process for many societies, and ratification of the Optional Protocol can often only come about after a period of national debate. Until they reach that point, I urge those States still employing the death penalty to place a formal moratorium on its use, with the aim of ultimately ratifying the Optional Protocol and abolishing the punishment altogether everywhere.”
The United Nations in Mongolia have come together to welcome the initiative to establish a moratorium on executions as from 14th of January 2010, to align their law to international human rights obligations and encourage the country to move rapidly to an abolition of capital punishment in the near future.