Foreword This year’s edition marks the 10th Anniversary of The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area – Background Paper. Since ODIHR started publishing this paper on a yearly basis, the global trend towards the abolition of the death penalty has continued. While nine1 OSCE participating States still retained the death penalty in 1999, today two countries are left in the region that still apply capital punishment, one of which appears to be moving towards the introduction of a moratorium in the near future. Although there are no OSCE commitments requiring the abolition of the death penalty, participating States have made a number of commitments regarding its use.2 In particular, participating States have committed themselves only to impose capital punishment in a manner that is not contrary to their international commitments and to keep the question of whether or not to retain the death penalty under consideration. Covering the period 1 July 2008 until 30 June 2009, this year’s background paper, as in 2008, highlights in a concise manner developments that have occurred since the last publication.3 It was ODIHR’s intention that the content of each country entry should be based primarily on information provided by the participating States themselves. All OSCE participating States have committed themselves to making information on the use of the death penalty available to the public.4 Accordingly, in June 2009, a questionnaire on the use of the death penalty was sent to each of the six participating States for which there were country entries in the 2008 edition.5 The questionnaire is reproduced in Annex 4. Belarus, Kazakhstan, Latvia and the United States responded to the questionnaire, while no reply was received from Tajikistan. The Russian Federation replied in writing that, due to the existing moratorium on 1  “The Death Penalty: List of Abolitionist and Retentionist Countries”, Amnesty International, April 2000, < http:// www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ACT50/005/2000/en/34d7c521-df70-11dd-acaa-7d9091d4638f/act500052000en. pdf>. 2  For a list of relevant OSCE commitments, see Annex 1. 3  For earlier developments, see “The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area, Background Paper 2008”, OSCE/ODIHR, September 2008, http://www.osce.org/publications/odihr/2008/09/33276_1187_en.pdf>. 4  Copenhagen Document 1990, para. 17.8., see Annex 1. 5  “The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area – Background Paper 2008”, op.cit., note 3. The six participating States that retained the death penalty in some way in 2008 were Belarus, Kazakhstan, Latvia, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan and the United States of America. vii