A House with Two Rooms - The Advocates for Human Rights

Personal Integrity & Dignity: The Right to Life
In 2005, Liberia acceded to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights, which obligates each state party to ensure that no one within its territory is
executed and to take all necessary measures to abolish the death penalty within its jurisdiction. In
2008, however, Liberia passed new legislation authorizing the death penalty for certain crimes, 170 and
individual Liberians have been sentenced to death by Liberia’s courts. 171 Apart from legally-sanctioned
executions as a criminal punishment, Liberia has a long history of extra-legal, arbitrary, and summary
executions. The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
provides a guiding framework on the right to life. The Advocates recommends the following:
• In compliance with its obligations, the Government of Liberia should immediately repeal
provisions of its criminal code, and any other legislation, that authorize capital punishment.
It should immediately commute the death sentences of any inmates to a punishment that
complies with international standards.
• The Government of Liberia should ensure that no individual within its jurisdiction is executed
through state sanctioned judicial procedures.
• The Government of Liberia should prohibit by law all extra-legal, arbitrary and summary
executions and should ensure that any such executions are recognized as offences in the
criminal code, and are punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account the
seriousness of such offences. 172 The law should make clear that exceptional circumstances,
including a state of war or threat of war, internal political instability, or any other public
emergency, should not be invoked as a justification for such executions. 173
Personal Integrity & Dignity: Prohibition of Torture and Inhuman & Degrading Treatment
TRC statements from the diaspora reflect that torture and other inhuman and degrading treatments
were endemic during the Liberian conflict. The Convention against Torture and Other Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment requires that Liberia “take effective legislative, administrative,
judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.” 174 The
Guidelines and Measures for the Prohibition and Prevention of Torture, Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Punishment in Africa (The Robben Island Guidelines) provide a framework for protecting Liberians
from these practices. The Advocates recommends the following:
• The Government of Liberia should ensure that acts that fall within the definition of torture,
based on Article 1 of the U.N. Convention against Torture, are offenses within the national
legal system. 175
• The Government of Liberia should pay particular attention to the prohibition and prevention
of gender-related forms of torture and ill-treatment, as well as the torture and ill-treatment
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