The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area–Background Paper 2019 around economic, social and cultural rights, entailing an obligation of conduct, rather than result, on the state to be taking steps toward abolition. For example, by adopting sentencing guidelines to restrict the application of the death penalty even among the most serious cases, by granting clemency or by imposing a prospective moratorium, states move toward progressive abolition. Less directly, it could also involve steps aimed at sensitising the public, or particular constituencies to the arguments in favour of abolition, or by keeping the question under near-constant policy review. This corresponds with the commitment made by OSCE participating States to keep complete abolition “under consideration.” The origins of the need for “progressive abolition” go back to the drafting of the Covenant. William Schabas has discussed how during the drafting of the ICCPR between 1947 and 1954, the death penalty as a potential limitation on the right to life became a divisive issue. On one side were a significant number of states that then still retained the death penalty and, on the other, was a collective expectation that the future would bring its eventual total abolition, and seemingly an acknowledgement that the death penalty inherently conflicts with the norms underlying respect for human rights.7 The provision in Article 6 (2) that “In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes …” was designed to resolve this impasse: Roger Hood has described the term as “a product of its time” and a “marker” for the policy of moving towards abolition through restriction. According to the Chairperson of the Working Group on the drafting of Article 6, the wording of Article 6 (2) was intended to show the direction in which the Working Group hoped the situation would develop. A “constant reappraisal” of the meaning of the term would be needed. The wording chosen reflected the expectation that the category of permissible capital offences would narrow over the years as the value attached to life and other inalienable human rights increased.8 This understanding of Article 6 (2) as a progressively narrowing exception is supported by the inclusion of Article 6 (6), which provides that nothing in Article 6 may be invoked to delay or prevent the abolition of capital punishment by any state party to the Covenant. The important implication of this for the present volume is that were the death penalty, or any part of its imposition, found to be a violation of another human right – most obviously the prohibition of cruel, inhuman, or 7  William A. Schabas, The Abolition of the Death Penalty in International Law, 3rd edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 68. 8  Roger Hood, “The Enigma of the ‘Most Serious’ Offences”, (2006) Center for Human Rights and Global Justice Working Paper No. 9, p. 3. 7