The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area–Background Paper 2019 submitted by the alleged victims themselves but by their legal representatives.”218 The UN Human Rights Committee then details why it is so important for interim measures to be observed, i.e., to avoid irreparable damage to the victim of an alleged violation of the Covenant, especially by irreversible measures like the death penalty. Executing people before the “consideration of their communications, compromises the protection of the ICCPR rights and constitutes a serious violation of the Optional Protocol.”219 After the execution of Siamion Berazhny and Ihar Hershankou in November 2018, a group of human rights experts220 deplored the ongoing use of the death penalty while registered complaints were pending before the UN Human Rights Committee, and after they had requested Belarus to stay the executions while their communications were under consideration.221 As the Chair of the UN Human Rights Committee said in December 2018, “the repetitive failure of Belarus to respect the Committee’s procedures and the interim measures it has issued is simply unacceptable. The fact that such failures occur in the context of capital cases which implicate the right to life, and which the Committee considers to be the ‘supreme right’, is particularly unconscionable.”222 In this statement, the human rights experts affirmed that their interim measures are binding under international law. This same expert group confirmed that the Human Rights Committee will still consider the cases of Aliaksei Mikhalenia, Siamion Berazhny and Ihar Hershankou, irrespective of their executions and noted that: “All three cases contain allegations of torture in detention, forced confessions, denial of access to legal assistance and unfair trial.”223 2.2 Abolitionist participating States In the OSCE region, 52 of the 57 participating States are classified as abolitionists, meaning that the death penalty has been abolished for all crimes, in law and in practice. Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the 52 abolitionist states, although the Constitution of the Republika Srpska still provides for capital punishment.224 218  Ibid. 219  Ibid., para. 8. 220  UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus and the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, together with the UN Human Rights Committee. 221  “UN human rights experts condemn Belarus executions”, OHCHR news website, 12 December 2018, <https:// www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24009&LangID=E>. 222  Ibid. 223  Ibid. 224  Republika Srpska is one of the two entities comprising Bosnia and Herzegovina. 43