Introduction
“Land of the free and home of the brave.” That’s how the United States describes itself. It prides itself on being a paradigm of human rights and individual freedom, founded on the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It’s surprising how a country like this can become associated with authoritarian regimes with horrible human rights records such as China or Iran, yet its continued use of the death penalty demonstrates how its so-called commitment to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness might not even include the right to life after all.
International non-governmental organizations (NGOs) like the United Nations have called upon their member States to abolish the use of the death penalty, stating it violates the “right to life, liberty, and security of person” guaranteed by Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Despite the constant backlash throughout recent history, the United States continually uses the death penalty and defends it on the international stage. It is one of the only nations to still do so. Nations that have abolished the death penalty see this as a sign of ignoring basic human rights and group the United States’ human rights index with that of nations like Sudan and Iraq. To put it simply, the United States’ use of the death penalty hurts its diplomatic relations and reflects poorly on the nation’s values.
Capital punishment’s role in United States foreign affairs is severely affecting its image on the world stage, given that much of the world is opposed to the death penalty. Gaining a fuller understanding of why many nations have abolished the death penalty, makes it easier to understand how the United States’ commitment to the death penalty has such strong implications on the international stage.
Historical Context
In “Death, Dissent, and Diplomacy: The U.S. Death Penalty as an Obstacle to Foreign Relations,” Mark Warren details foreign perceptions of the United States concerning its continued use of the death penalty. In 1971, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly reached the opinion that capital punishment no longer served as an acceptable exception to the right to life guaranteed in Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Many of the UN member states began adapting their legislature to reflect this new opinion. By the mid-90s, for example, a “commitment to abolition” of the death penalty became a requirement for membership in the Council of Europe and in the European Union. Meanwhile, the United States was making no such changes, and consequently starting some very rocky diplomatic relationships. In 2001, the UN had taken notice of the United States’ static position on capital punishment and temporarily removed the United States from the UN Human Rights Council as a result. Later, in October of 2003, the forty-five nation Council of Europe, which contains many of the United States’ allies, stated that the United States’ “intractable position” towards the death penalty was “intolerable.”
The United States gained even more negative attention in 2004 when the International Court of Justice’s Avena decision declared the United States had, according to the 27th session of the UN Human Rights Council “failed to provide consular notification and access” to 51 Mexican nationals awaiting execution. Within the 27th session, the UN publicly rebuked the United States for this in 2014, stating that “the denial of the right to consular notification leads to the violation of due process and the execution of a foreign national deprived of his or her right to consular services constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of life.” Later that same year, the UN Human Rights Council took a firm stance on the use of capital punishment in their annual report to the Secretary General, stating that they still have numerous concerns regarding the “lack of respect for relevant international human rights norms and standards in States where the death penalty is still imposed.” Despite the continual concerns expressed by the international community throughout recent history, the United States continues to use the death penalty as a form of punishment within its criminal justice system.
The Human Rights Perspective
A vast number of international organizations have repeatedly expressed negative opinions about the death penalty. Most people reference the human rights perspective, claiming the death penalty is a violation of human rights. However, abolitionist views towards capital punishment are just as easily justifiable for other reasons. Many anti-death penalty advocates use the often-discriminatory implementation as a key argument. Other proponents, especially the UN, use its implications on juvenile offenders as a reason for its abolition.
The human rights perspective is arguably the most common criticism of capital punishment. Dongwook Kim addresses this in her article “International Non-Governmental Organizations and the Abolition of the Death Penalty,” where she cites then Secretary General of the UN Ban Ki-moon’s 2012 statement that “The right to life is the most fundamental of all human rights.” Aside from the views of the UN expressed by Kim, human rights NGOs use this perspective to promote the abolition of capital punishment. Amnesty International, one of the largest human rights NGOs in the world, calls the death penalty the “ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment.” Amnesty International also claims that the death penalty impedes on “the right to life and the right to live free from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” which are both protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The use of the death penalty for juvenile offenders, which is a direct violation of international law, is also a key argument against capital punishment. According to Amnesty, the United States is the only Western nation to report having used capital punishment on juvenile offenders since 1990, the other 9 countries being: China, Iran, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. Organizations like Amnesty, Kim argues are “key to the worldwide abolition of the death penalty for all crimes.”
Unfair or discriminatory implication of the death penalty is a well-known, although less common, argument against the use of capital punishment. Within the UN, human rights groups have expressed continued concern over the “lack of fair trial in death penalty cases in a number of States,” as stated in the 27th session of the Human Rights Council. Human rights NGOs, according to Kim, insist that capital punishment is used as a “social control tool” against the poor and minority groups. In the United States, for example, one is “22 times more likely to get [sentenced to death] if the defendant is Black and the victim is white.” The previously aforementioned Avena decision of 2004 also serves as an example of this. Amnesty International further elaborates on this topic, stating how capital punishment is often disproportionately used on those with limited access to legal representation. Additionally, social activist and New York University professor of law Bryan Stevenson argues that American use of capital punishment is “defined by error.” He states that one out of every nine people executed was later found to be innocent. Human rights activists often use the consistent errors found within American death row to further their point.
Role in US Diplomatic Relations
The United States’ continued use of the death penalty isolates it from the rest of the world. According to Daniel Baer, former United States Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, there are many different examples of the United States demonstrating a different viewpoint than the rest of the world. Out of the 30 member countries in NATO, the United States is the only one still using the death penalty. On top of that, more than 70% of the world’s nations have abolished or imposed a moratorium on capital punishment. The European Union, one of the closest and most important diplomatic relationships for the United States, has even banned the use of the death penalty in all member states. The United States is the only Western country to have carried out executions from 2013-2019. The United States, however, also emphasizes the importance of following global norms, with diplomat Stefanie Amadeo stating in an article from the New Yorker that “the United States is committed to complying with its international obligations” during her time as deputy representative to the UN Economic and Social Council. Despite assuring their aforementioned commitment to following along with the rest of the world’s views, the United States continues to demonstrate their inability to let go of the death penalty.
The United States’ continued defense of the death penalty has led to some problems within the international community. In 1999, five years before the abolition of the death penalty in Turkey and fifteen years since their last execution, the Turkish government sentenced Abdullah Öcalan, a guerilla leader for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, to death. Many, including the United States, saw this as a grossly unfair trial, and encouraged the Turkish government to undo Öcalan’s sentence. However, according to Warren, when the United States got involved, the Turkish government questioned the “authority of the United States to ask another country to forego the death penalty,” referencing its frequent use of capital punishment. While some countries (in this case, Turkey) have questioned the United States’ authority to criticize their implementation of the death penalty, some countries go a step further. According to international death penalty expert Mark Warren, some countries use the United States’ continual use and support of the death penalty to “legitimize their own appalling domestic practices.” Warren references Nigeria, who used this United States’ actions concerning capital punishment to support their 2002 ruling that adulterers will be sentenced to death by stoning.
Modern Values
When looking at it from this perspective, it is obvious that the United States’ continual usage of capital punishment makes it look out of touch and, as some would argue, barbaric. Using the death penalty isolates the country from modern views towards human rights. It puts the United States on the wrong side of a modern fundamental human rights issue.
The United States was founded on the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Using the death penalty blocks the right to life, and therefore that principle as a whole. If the United States cannot stay true to the very principle it was founded upon, how are other nations supposed to respect them?
Moreover, by capital punishment, the US not only looks bad in comparison to other developed nations, but also reflects poorly on itself and its own values. Its history of defending the death penalty time and time again groups the United States with countries with atrocious human rights track records like Saudi Arabia, China, and Iran. As the New Yorker’s Lincoln Caplan puts it, the United States ranks with other nations “not in full compliance with their international obligations.”
Careful consideration of international law, modern human rights views, and the country’s founding principles makes it painfully obvious that the death penalty has no place in the United States. Historical evidence shows how the United States has continually used capital punishment to violate what many see as a basic human right, and, in the case of the Avena decision, to violate international law. Aside from that, the use of capital punishment groups the US with countries with terrible human rights track records like Iran, Russia, or Belarus. Overall, the usage of capital punishment makes the United States look outdated and barbaric. It does not represent the “modern” nation the founding fathers intended. Interacting with such a “barbaric” country represents other countries poorly, leaving the United States isolated on the diplomatic stage.