EU NEIGHBOURS. On 19 March 2021, Armenia deposited the instrument of ratification on the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, becoming its 89th State party.
The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty is the only international treaty of worldwide scope to prohibit executions and to provide for total abolition of the death penalty. This text, annexed to the United Nations’ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 1989, requires the States that ratify it to renounce the use of the death penalty definitively.
The EU welcomes this important decision, which is in line with the world trend to abandon the most inhuman and cruel punishment, according to a statement issued by the European External Action Service on 24 March.
“While the Armenian Constitution already protects the right to life and prohibits the death penalty, Armenia makes this abolition irreversible with its accession to this protocol,” says the statement.
