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UNITED NATIONS - European Union and other countries opposed to the death penalty are to launch a fresh bid in coming weeks to have the UN General Assembly pass a resolution urging an end to it, diplomats said.
Two previous similar attempts failed, due partly to opposition from the United States, where many states still perform executions, but a diplomat familiar with the campaign said this time the text would tone down the demand.
Instead of asking outright for abolition, a draft obtained by Reuters calls on countries that put criminals to death to "establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty."
It calls application of the death penalty "a denial of human dignity and integrity," says it "provides no added value in terms of deterrence" and notes that "any miscarriage or failure of justice in its implementation is irreversible and irreparable."
Unlike Security Council resolutions, those passed by the General Assembly are not binding, but they have moral force.
The diplomat, who spoke on condition he was not identified, said the co-authors of the resolution were the 27 EU states and nine other countries. They were led by Italy, a vigorous opponent of the death penalty, and current EU president Portugal.
In May, the EU mandated Italy to lead a push for a UN moratorium on the death penalty across the world.
"We have been lobbying hard in the past year for the suspension of the death penalty and we believe the time is right now to have another stab," Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier of Germany, then in the EU chair, said at the time.
The diplomat said sponsors of the resolution would hold an informal meeting later this week before circulating it to a General Assembly committee. The aim was to have a vote by mid-November by the full Assembly, where a simple majority of the 192 member states is needed.
Data collected by rights group Amnesty International showed a fall in worldwide executions to 1591 in 2006 from 2148 in 2005, and a fall in the number of countries imposing the death penalty.
Some 99 countries ban capital punishment, while 69 still use it. Six countries - China, Iran, Iraq, the United States, Pakistan and Sudan - account for about 90 per cent of the total, and China the bulk of those.
- REUTERS
