Human Rights and Democracy - Official Documents

In 2010 we funded project work in the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
We also funded the Death Penalty Project, an NGO with which we work closely. Its
work in 2010 on the case of Godfrey Mutiso led to the mandatory death penalty
being ruled unconstitutional in Kenya, following similar work which led to the 2009
ruling in Uganda that the mandatory death penalty was unconstitutional, resulting in
167 death sentences being commuted to life imprisonment. The Death Penalty
Project also ran a successful workshop in Barbados, bringing together legal experts
from across the Caribbean to consider the issues and challenges that need to be
addressed in order to further restrict the death penalty in the region.
In China we provided capacity building for legislative reform. A revision to China’s
criminal code in 2011 is likely to reduce the number of capital crimes from 68 to 55.
This will be implemented by a restructuring of the criminal punishment system. In
addition, on 1 July China introduced new evidence guidance on death penalty cases.
Along with the EU, we are the main foreign donor working closely with the Chinese
authorities on reform and eventual abolition of the death penalty. We also fund two
death penalty-related projects as part of a wider EU programme.
The UN plays an important role in creating momentum towards global abolition. In
December we co-sponsored the cross-regional UN General Assembly resolution on
the Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty and lobbied actively for support.
This resolution calls upon states to establish a moratorium on executions with a view
to abolishing the death penalty. The steady increase of support for this resolution,
previously adopted in 2007 and 2008, reinforces the international trend towards
global abolition. We lobbied Mongolia and Gambia, both of which voted to support
the resolution for the first time. We also raised our concerns about the death penalty
during the Universal Periodic Review process in the UN Human Rights Council,
including, for example, recommending to the US that it establish a moratorium on the
use of the death penalty at the federal and state level as a first step towards
abolition.
Bilaterally we raised the death penalty directly with governments in a number of
countries and regions, including China, the US, the Caribbean and Japan. Where a
UK national faces the death penalty abroad, we use all appropriate influence to
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