NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 11 – International support grew at the United Nations for a moratorium on executions. A resolution submitted every two years by a coalition of member states including Italy was adopted with 127 states in favor at the end of the debate by the Third Committee.
37 states voted against on the text submitted this year by Australia and Costa Rica. Adding abstentions to the votes in favor the total of countries that don’t object to the moratorium grew to 150, above the 146 in 2020, which was already a record.
Ahead of the vote, the Farnesina continued to work, in close synergy with civil society organizations, to consolidate – and hopefully surpass- the result of 123 ‘yes’ votes gathered in 2020. In this context, Italy had organized a high-level event, on the sidelines of the ministerial week of the United Nations General Assembly, with the aim of sharing and deepening good practices tested in different areas of the world with the goal of the moratorium in view to the total abolition of the death penalty.
The resolution is the ninth since 2007, when Italy led the way. “Since then, the progress has been indisputable. Today, as many as 144 countries have abolished the death penalty or no longer practice it,” the Italian Permanent Representative Maurizio Massari said on the eve of the Assembly’s high-level week, noting, however, that the picture has “lights and shadows”: in 2021 there were as many as 579 executions worldwide and the real number is probably much higher. (@OnuItalia)