The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area–Background Paper 2019 for all those involved.231 There is a strong message that the death penalty may only be imposed for the “most serious crimes” and that this is consistently interpreted as meaning intentional killing. On 24 September 2018, the first Ministerial meeting for the Alliance for TortureFree Trade took place in New York on the margins of the UN General Assembly session. The Alliance issued a Joint Communique in which they committed to the advancement of a draft resolution to be adopted by the UN General Assembly. 232 They requested that member states be asked about the possibility of a legally binding instrument to establish common international standards for the import, export and transfer of goods used for capital punishment, torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and that a group of governmental experts be set up to assess the option. On 12 September 2018, ODIHR organised a side-event attended by several OSCE delegations at the margins of the 2018 Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw to encourage OSCE participating States and civil society to elaborate on actions and activities already underway in this area, and to explore how OSCE participating States could add to the regional and global movement to restrict trade in torture tools.233 In a statement to the OSCE Permanent Council on 11 October 2018, the EU encouraged all states to support the Global Alliance for Torture-Free Trade.234 On 10 October 2018 the 16th World Day against the Death Penalty was observed, focussing on living conditions on death row. The lead organiser is the World Coalition against the Death Penalty and, in their factsheet on this theme, they pointed out that when death row inmates are faced with prolonged periods of solitary confinement, are kept in cages or are denied medical care, for example, these experiences can amount to torture.235 The fact that many prisoners in the US spend more than a decade on death row is also highlighted as an area of concern.236 On this day, the European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe made a joint declaration stating that the death penalty is contrary to the right to life and has no established deterrent 231  Report of the Secretary-General, Question of the death penalty, op. cit., note 198, para. 46. 232  “Alliance for Torture-Free Trade Joint Communique”, op. cit., note 34. 233  “Measures to end trade in torture tools in OSCE region focus of expert discussion in Warsaw”, OSCE ODIHR, 13 September 2018, <https://www.osce.org/odihr/394460>. 234  “EU statement on European and World Day against the Death Penalty”, op. cit., note 214. 235  “Living conditions on death row: detailed factsheet”, World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, October 2018, <http://www.worldcoalition.org/media/resourcecenter/EN_FactSheet_WD2018>. 236  “Time on Death Row”, Death Penalty Information Center, <https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-row/conditions-on-death-row/time-on-death-row>. 45