The United States Remains A Shameful Outlier On The Death Penalty

The Human Rights Counsel of the United Nations passed a death penalty resolution on Friday that had very reasonable, modest and non-controversial goals.  It didn't call for the abolition of the death penalty outright.  It simply urged countries that still use the death penalty to do so fairly. 

The Resolution calls upon countries to ensure the death penalty isn’t applied in a discriminatory or arbitrary manner and to provide those facing the death penalty with equal access to justice and qualified and effective legal representation.  It calls upon countries to not apply the death penalty to those with mental or intellectual disabilities, to minors and to pregnant women.  And it calls upon countries to not impose the death penalty as a sanction "for specific forms of conduct such as apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations." 

The resolution passed 27-13.  The United States was one of the countries to vote "no."  We were joined by:  Botswana, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, China, India, Iraq, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates.  Every European country voted for the resolution.  So did every Latin American country (except for Cuba, which abstained). 

The U.S. reportedly voted against the resolution because of “broader concerns with the resolution’s approach to condemning the death penalty in all circumstances."  Bullshit.  We voted against the resolution because our government knows that the death penalty in this country is rife with discrimination and arbitrariness, and does not come close to ensuring the provision of competent counsel.  The U.S. was likely also concerned with the resolution's call for maintaining and providing data on the death penalty because it would allow for the kind of transparency that our government is very reluctant to provide.

While the rate of executions in the United States is declining in most parts of the country, we remain in the top five of countries with the most executions, joined by Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and China. 

We are an exceptional country.  We are exceptional in our refusal to confront institutional racism and we are exceptional in our tolerance for violence.  And we are exceptional in our insistence on state-sanctioned killing that perpetuates both.