without violating other human rights, especially the right to be free from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.12 As a South African, I am reminded of Justice Chaskalson’s observation in the Makwanyane decision, abolishing the death penalty in my country: “In the ordinary meaning of the words, the death sentence is undoubtedly a cruel punishment. Once sentenced, the prisoner waits on death row in the company of other prisoners under sentence of death, for the processes of their appeals and the procedures for clemency to be carried out. Throughout this period, those who remain on death row are uncertain of their fate, not knowing whether they will ultimately be reprieved or taken to the gallows. Death is a cruel penalty and the legal processes which necessarily involve waiting in uncertainty for the sentence to be set aside or carried out, add to the cruelty. It is also an inhuman punishment for it “...involves, by its very nature, a denial of the executed person’s humanity,” and it is degrading because it strips the convicted person of all dignity and treats him or her as an object to be eliminated by the state.”13 Over a number of years, the UN Human Rights Committee has voiced concern about the manner of execution in various countries, highlighting how several – for example stoning, injection of untested lethal drugs, gas chambers, burning and burying alive, and public executions – are contrary to Article 7 of the ICCPR.14 However, at the same time, the Committee has also been concerned about whether the act of execution itself, however conducted, could be incompatible with the same provision. Juan E. Mendez, the former UN Special Rapporteur on torture, discussed the jurisprudence related to methods of execution that arguably violate the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment at length in his 2012 report.15 As long ago as 1993 the UN Human Rights Committee described itself as “aware that, by definition, every execution of a sentence of death may be considered to 12  Christof Heyns & Thomas Probert, ”The Right to Life and the Progressive Abolition of the Death Penalty”, op. cit., note 9, p. 218. 13  Constitutional Court of South Africa, Judgement of 6 June 1995, State v. Makwanyane and M Mchunu, Case No. CCT/3/94 para. 26 (the quote is from US Supreme Court Justice Brennan’s concurring opinion in Furman v. Georgia (1972)). 14  General Comment No. 36, op. cit., note 10, para. 40 (citing: Concluding Observations: Iran (2011), para. 12; Concluding Observations: US (2014), para. 8; Communication No. 469/1991, Ng v Canada, Views adopted on 5 Nov, 1993, para. 16.4; Malawi Africa Association v Mauritania, Report of the ACHPR of 11 May 2000, para. 120. Concluding Observations: Democratic Republic of Korea (2001), para. 13). 15  Juan E. Mendez, “Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”, U.N. Doc. A/67/279, paras. 33-41. 9