Has the global society grown spiritually enough that it can place a moratorium on capital punishment?The Italian government believes so.
This past week the Italian Prime Minster, Romano Prodi, announced that Italy will push for a universal moratorium on executions. Italy has taken one of the ten non-permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council and has requested that the Security Council re-examine their proposal for a moratorium on the death penalty submitted last month.
This is not a new appeal to the United Nations. According to the BBC, Italy in 1994 and again in 1995 presented proposals for a moratorium on the death penalty.
Italy urges global execution ban – BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6226687.stm
Since 2003, member countries of the European Union have ended the use of the death penalty in Europe by signing the European Convention on Human Rights Protocol No. 6 and No. 13. According to the European Union website, "The European Union campaigns towards the universal abolition of the death penalty. This stance is rooted in the belief in the inherent dignity of all human beings and the inviolability of the human person, regardless of the crime committed."
http://ec.europa.eu/comm/external_relations/human_rights/adp/index.htm
EU Policy On The Death Penalty http://www.eurunion.org/legislat/DeathPenalty/EurHRConvProt13Decl.htm
In the United States only twelve of the fifty states have ended the death penalty. In addition to those states, The District of Columbia has abolished capital punishment.
According to Amnesty International - Since 1973, 123 individules have been found innocent who were sentenced to death in the United States. The looming question is how many innocent people have we put to death by means of our capital punishment program in the name of public safety?
There are many arguments for why capital punishment should be abolished - from the financial aspect of an execution to the physiological understanding that a death penalty is not a deterrent. For me, there is only one line of reasoning – who gives you or me the right to extinguish life?
The late philologist, author, and philosopher, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, said it so elegantly through his character Gandalf the Grey in The Fellowship of the Ring. “Many that live deserve death and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”
Amnesty International
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-index-eng
The Innocence Project
http://www.innocenceproject.org/
The Death Penalty Information Center
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/
