UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein urged all states to put an end to death penalty, which he said is the very example of human vengeance at its worst.
In remarks at the high-level event, Moving Away from the Death Penalty: National Leadership, held on the margins of the annual General Assembly debate in New York, he affirmed that the right to life represents everything the UN stands for.
His Highness added that the application of the death penalty deprived people of their lives "arbitrarily and cruelly" and that the practice itself was "unjust and incompatible with human rights." He underscored the need to reform judicial systems around the world, noting that only then would a practice based on vengeance truly be defeated.
"We encouraged the international community to "set course" towards a "more sophisticated, more human" form of justice which goes beyond punishment and seeks "a genuine recognition by the wrongdoers of their wrongdoing." The Prince said.
The High Commissioner dismissed capital punishment as "degrading and cruel in more than one sense" and acknowledged that it was "often discriminatory" of the condemned, disproportionately affecting the poor, the mentally ill, the powerless and minorities.
Source: petra.gov, Sept. 25, 2014
