We,
The participants of the 6th World Congress Against the Death Penalty, organised in Oslo (Norway) from 21st to 23rd June 2016 by Ensemble contre la peine de mort (ECPM) with sponsorship from Norway, Australia and France, and in partnership with the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty;

ADOPT

this Declaration after three days of intense debate, exchanges of experience, personal accounts and film screenings;

WE CELEBRATE THE FACT THAT

• the abolitionist movement is developing in a world where nearly ¾ of States have renounced application of capital punishment, be it in law or in fact;
• numerous abolitionist States and intergovernmental organisations are committed to supporting the world abolitionist movement, and non-abolitionist States, which attended the Congress, have also demonstrated their interest in the movement;
• since the World Congress in Madrid in 2013, six States have abolished the death penalty for all crimes: Madagascar, Mongolia, Nauru, Fiji, the Republic of Congo and Suriname; the trend for abolition in the United States is becoming established;
• the abolitionist movement continues to grow and diversify to include, alongside the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, 158 members: States, organisations and actors from civil society, networks of parliamentarians and academics, national human rights institutions, companies, unions and journalists, pooling its strengths to promote abolition of the death penalty;
• certain abolitionist States are integrating the challenge of universal abolition into their international relations;
• ties are being developed between actors from civil society and States and intergovernmental, regional and international organisations with a view to establishing or reinforcing the State of law;
• major economic actors such as Pfizer and Richard Branson (founder of the Virgin Group) are publicly taking a position against the death penalty;
• positive announcements have been made, such as those by the Deputy Justice Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mongolia to vote for the UN moratorium in December next year;
• the scope and seriousness of the damage caused by the death penalty to the family and friends of prisoners sentenced to death and the victims, as well as other members of society, is being realised.

BUT WE OBSERVE THAT

• the revival of terrorist violence globally is being used by certain governments, such as Egypt, to justify retaining the death penalty and using it to criminalise opposition movements;
• according to Amnesty International, 58 countries and territories retain the death penalty and often apply it arbitrarily;
• in 2015, 1,634 people were executed across the world, particularly in Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the United States. This statistic does not take into account the unknown number of executions in China;
• maintaining the death penalty for drug-related crimes is in total opposition to the recommendations of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, and the observations drawn up at the special session of the UN General Assembly in April 2016 in New York. The UN Member States recorded the failure of the policies of the “war on drugs” based uniquely on a repressive vision;
• certain countries have resumed executions after several years of a moratorium, such as Indonesia, Chad and Pakistan;
• the death penalty still affects juveniles and those with a mental illness;
• the death penalty is practiced in a discriminatory manner according to ethnic, national, social or religious origin, skin colour and sexual orientation;
• most of the time, prisoners sentenced to death are subjected to conditions of detention which often constitute inhuman and degrading treatment because of their status.

UNDERLINING THE NEED TO TAKE NEW SIGNIFICANT STEPS
TOWARDS TOTAL AND UNIVERSAL ABOLITION OF THE DEATH PENALTY,
WE CALL ON

International and regional intergovernmental organisations to:
• continue and intensify their cooperation with States and civil society to promote universal abolition of the death penalty;
• integrate into UN discussions with stakeholders on the fight against drugs and crime the problems connected to retaining the death penalty;
• integrate the issue of the death penalty into the mandate of the UN special rapporteurs, particularly those covering terrorism, extrajudicial executions, torture, migrants and extreme poverty;
• adopt regional instruments as quickly as possible, including the Additional Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on abolition of the death penalty in Africa.

The States attending the Congress in Oslo to:
• keep the commitments made at the Congress, for example Guinea’s commitment to promulgate a criminal code which does not include capital punishment on 1 July 2016.

Retentionist States to commit to:
• drastically reducing the number of crimes punishable by the death penalty in their legislation and immediately removing the mandatory death penalty where it exists, and reflecting on alternative solutions which respect the ability of individuals to make amends;
• respecting the International Convention on the Rights of the Child by renouncing the execution of juveniles and people aged under 18 at the time the crime was committed;
• collecting and publishing regular, scientifically reliable, independently produced information on application of the death penalty and the status of public opinion in this respect, as well as on alternative sentences;
• taking the route towards abolition of capital punishment by establishing a moratorium on sentences and executions, in conformity with the resolution for a moratorium on application of the death penalty voted on by the UN General Assembly since 2007, and ratifying the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as 81 States have done;
• guaranteeing an efficient system of legal aid for prisoners sentenced to death who cannot pay for a lawyer.

Abolitionist States to:
• commit, over and beyond discussion, to concrete and more visible action in support of universal abolition of the death penalty, particularly by requiring guarantees for the resumption or continuation of their diplomatic and economic relations with retentionist States;
• support and then ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of the UN;
• require, within the framework of the financial assistance they provide to the international fight against drug trafficking, the States concerned to renounce capital punishment for these crimes;
• promote and guarantee respect for fundamental rights in the fight against terrorism, including by not resorting to the death penalty;
• support actors from civil society working in support of abolition of the death penalty;
• vote in favour of the UNGA resolution calling for a universal moratorium on capital executions in 2016.

Parliamentarians:
• from across the world: to come together in regional, national and international networks, and take the abolition debate to the heart of retentionist parliaments;
• from abolitionist States: to help their peers in retentionist States to put forward projects for abolition.

National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIS) to:
• systematically integrate issues relating to the death penalty into their action plans and to encourage their States to abolish the death penalty and vote in favour of the UN General Assembly resolution calling for a universal moratorium on the death penalty.

In retentionist countries:
• lawyers to be trained in order to better defend their clients facing the death penalty;
• prosecutors not to request application of the death penalty;
• judges to use their power of the individualisation of punishments so as not to pass capital punishment and to encourage untrained juries to do the same.

Actors from economic and cultural life:
• increasingly commit to saying loudly and proudly that maintaining an archaic and degrading punishment does not encourage a harmonious development of the economy, tourism and cultural exchanges.

Abolitionist actors from civil society to:
• take action together, particularly by joining the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty to strengthen abolitionist synergies, or other organisations such as the International Academic Network for the Abolition of Capital Punishment;
• carry out action to raise awareness and educate the public, political decision-makers, pupils and students about abolition by joining the international education network and participating in the annual World Day against the Death Penalty on 10 October and Cities for Life on 30 November every year.

Done in Oslo,
23rd June 2016