On May 5th, 2011, the IIMA Human Rights Office participated in the Side event “The Death Penalty Worldwide: new data regarding the practice and laws of death penalty retentionist States” held at Palais des Nations, in Geneva.
The Round Table was organised by the Center for International Human Rights at the Northwestern University School of Law of Chicago in partnership with the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. It aimed at informing the UN Member States and civil society actors about the creation of a new website and database collecting global death penalty data. It is an online source of information, based on accurate academic and legal analysis.
The database has been created by an international team of researchers who spent the last two years gathering and compiling data from 90 states who maintain the death penalty in law or/and in practice.
Ms. Sandra Babcock, Professor at the Center for International Human Rights, one of the creators of this database, demonstrated the usefulness of the new instrument. In fact, she shows that it is a valuable resource for policymakers, lawyers, courts, activists and journalists who can use it to search information regarding legal and political trends in the practice of the death penalty. It also simplifies comparative analysis of jurisdictional systems that retain the death penalty.
The website and the database, as explained by Ms. Babcock, intend to fill a void in the current information concerning laws and practices related to the application of the death penalty worldwide.
During the following interactive dialogue several participants expressed their appreciation for the new comprehensive instrument.
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