The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area the application of the death penalty in Russia, it did not consider the questionnaire ­relevant given the country’s current practice.6 Additional information was also collected from OSCE field offices,7 NGOs and media reports. During the reporting period, there were some developments towards the abolition of the death penalty, and further efforts were made by the OSCE, the Council of Europe (CoE), the United Nations and the European Union to assist countries in this direction. At the national level, Uzbekistan acceded to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on 23 December 2008, while Latvia is in the process of developing legislation for the abolition of the death penalty in all cases. A broad discussion on the introduction of a moratorium has also begun in Belarus. In the United States, the state of New Mexico abolished capital punishment, becoming the 16th state to do so. Despite this progress, the United States and Belarus continued carrying out executions during the reporting period. At the international level, on 3 July 2009, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly adopted its concluding document, the Vilnius Declaration, which outlined a set of policy recommendations to the governments of OSCE participating States.8 The Declaration, voted on by 213 parliamentarians from 50 OSCE countries, contained 28 resolutions, one of which was the “Resolution on a Moratorium on the Death Penalty and Towards Its Abolition”.9 The resolution called on participating States retaining the death penalty to declare an immediate moratorium on executions. On 18 December 2008, the UN General Assembly adopted by a large majority a second resolution on the death penalty, affirming the resolution adopted in December 2007 calling on all nations that still use the death penalty to institute a moratorium on executions with a view towards abolishing the practice.10 The resolution drew the supporting votes of 106 member states, with 46 votes against and 34 abstentions. The CoE in 2007 established 10 October as the annual “European Day against the Death Penalty”,11 coinciding with the “World Day against the Death Penalty” launched by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty in 2003. In 2008, the 6  Letter to the ODIHR Director from the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the OSCE, dated 26 June 2009. 7  ODIHR is grateful to the OSCE Office in Minsk, the OSCE Centre in Astana and the OSCE Office in Tajikistan for responding to the questionnaire. 8  OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, AS (09) D 1 E, Vilnius Declaration, Vilnius, 29 June–3 July 2009. 9  Ibid. 10  United Nations General Assembly Resolution 63/168, “Moratorium on the use of the death penalty”, A/63/430/ Add.2, draft res. I., 18 December 2008. 11  Council of Europe, Decision CM(2007)137 and GR-EXT(2007)CB8, “European Day against the Death Penalty”, 26 September 2007. viii