The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area 1. Abolitionist States On 3 March 2009, Italy ratified Protocol 13 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) banning the death penalty in all circumstances and thereby becoming the 41st European country to take this step. Uzbekistan acceded to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on 23 December 2008. Prior to that, Uzbekistan had abolished the death penalty as of 1 January 2008, when 48 individuals were still on death row, according to a report by one NGO.12 On 29 April 2008, the Supreme Court started reviewing the death sentences pending at the time of abolition, commuting the death sentences to prison terms of either 20 or 25 years while deducting the time those sentenced to death had already spent in prison.13 No official data on the death penalty, including the number of sentences, executions and commutations, were published for previous years. On 20 March 2009, the UN Human Rights Committee adopted its Views on the subject of imposition of the death sentence after the trial of a defendant who alleged that he had been subjected to torture.14 In its decision, the Human Rights Committee ruled that torture or ill-treatment was used in order to force the accused to confess to a murder, thus violating the rights of the person under article 7 and article 14, paragraph 3 (g) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. According to the Human Rights Committee, Uzbekistan was thus obliged to provide the accused with effective legal remedies, including compensation, an investigation into the allegations of torture, and a re-trial. The Committee added, however, that the convicted person’s right to life had not been violated, as claimed in the initial filing, because the death sentence had been commuted on 16 April 2004. In September 2008, the Federal Court of Canada heard an application by Ronald Smith, a Canadian citizen who was sentenced to death in the US state of Montana in 1983 and remained on death row. Mr. Smith was challenging a recent change in Canadian policy, under which Canada would no longer seek clemency for its citizens sentenced to death in countries that it considered to be democratic and adherent to 12  Interview with Tamara Chikunova from Mothers Against the Death Sentence and Torture, Ferghana.Ru, 28 February 2008, <http://enews.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=2335>. 13  Country information on Uzbekistan, Hands Off Cain website, <http://www.handsoffcain.info/bancadati/schedastato.php?idcontinente=23&nome=uzbekistan>. 14  Human Rights Committee, Views on Communication No. 1163/2003, 22 April 2009, CCPR/ C/95/D/1163/2003. 3