In order to create a conducive environment for abolition of the death penalty, the abolitionist movement needs to develop strong advocacy strategies to reach out to parliamentarians and the executive. This workshop was about exchanging tools and best practices on how to lobby for abolition at national level with these key stakeholders.
Advocacy with parliamentarians and the executive is not an easy exercise. In both cases, the crucial aim is to be able to reach parliamentarians or the executive to advocate for abolition of the death penalty and obtain the support of these two actors who are key to achieving abolition of the death penalty in retentionist countries.
This dialogue must be done realistically, requesting a step-by-step approach to abolition. For example, a first step could be to abolish the mandatory death penalty for those countries practicing it, to reduce the field of application of capital punishment or to advocate the signing of a moratorium on executions.

Advocating with the executive

In December 2015, Mongolia adopted a new Criminal Code abolishing capital punishment. This was partly due to the advocacy carried out with the executive by Amnesty International Mongolia. The methodology used was to carry out an advocacy strategy on three complementary fronts⁹⁸;
• With the Mongolian authorities, by identifying the relevant figures from government such as the Justice and Foreign Affairs Ministers, the President and his team, as well as members of the working group on penal reform;
• Raising awareness with various actors (lawyers, law professors and students, civil society and the Mongolian public) particularly through training of lawyers and the media on the issue of the death penalty and international treaties; and
• Mobilising the necessary resources in order to reinforce the advocacy activities carried out with the Mongolian authorities. In this instance: meetings with the President, public action (films, exhibitions) to which the President was invited, and the mobilisation of parliamentarians and ambassadors from the European Union who were invited to use their networks to put pressure on the Mongolian Executive.
The role of parliamentarians is an asset for advocacy with the executive and advocacy with parliamentarians themselves. In particular, advocacy with parliamentarians can be performed in two ways: parliamentarian to parliamentarian (peer-to-peer) and the creation of parliamentarian networks.

Advocating with parliamentarians using the peer-to-peer method⁹⁹.

The peer-to-peer advocacy technique creates commitment among parliamentarians, independent of their political identity, vis-à-vis the interested parties in support of their understanding of received ideas on the death penalty and its ineffectiveness in terms of justice and deterrence. This technique is widely used, particularly by Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA).
By way of an example, PGA organised two parliamentary consultations in Malaysia in 2015 during which three ministers, including the Ministers for Justice and Tourism, publicly committed to abolishing the mandatory death penalty for drug-related crimes and introducing legal reforms in this regard.
Another advocacy method with parliamentarians is the creation of parliamentarian networks, such as the one initiated in Morocco by ECPM (Ensemble contre la peine de mort)¹⁰⁰. Thanks to the work of Moroccan civil society, in particular the Moroccan Coalition Against the Death Penalty, in partnership with ECPM, the Network of Moroccan Parliamentarians Against the Death Penalty¹⁰¹ was created within the Moroccan Parliament, bringing together 250 parliamentarians from the Chamber of Representatives and the Chamber of Councillors, from all political parties with the exception of the party currently in power, the Justice and Development Party. After the success of the creation of this network and the mobilisation of parliamentarians, which put abolition of the death penalty back at the heart of parliamentary debates, ECPM launched a number of similar initiatives in other countries, such as for example Lebanon, Tunisia and the Democratic Republic of Congo¹⁰².