The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area–Background Paper 2019 effect.237 They confirmed their support of the planned UN General Assembly resolution on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty and, pending the introduction of a moratorium, urged states imposing the death penalty to commute death sentences to prison terms and ensure that conditions of detention respect human dignity. They noted that member states should not support those states where drug offences are sanctioned with the death penalty and should avoid (even indirect) involvement with countries using the death penalty – for example by supporting the Global Alliance to end trade in goods used for capital punishment and torture. In honour of the World Day against the Death Penalty, a group of UN experts238 drew attention to the problems faced by women and girls on death row and how they require specific gender-based responses and policies.239 They welcomed research directed at this under-examined area, especially studies that focus on “situations where gender intersects with other identity markers such as poverty or race” when it comes to the death penalty.240 On the occasion of World Day against the Death Penalty, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Council of Europe also released a statement reaffirming its commitment to the abolition of the death penalty which is cruel, inhuman and degrading.241 The Committee reinforced the link between the confinement of inmates on death row and resulting physical and mental suffering that may lead to contraventions of Article 3 of the ECHR. The Committee called on Council of Europe member states to ratify Protocols numbers 6 and 13 to the ECHR on the prohibition of the death penalty, if they have not done so and appealed to Belarus and to states that have co-operation status with the Council of Europe (the United States and Kazakhstan in the OSCE region) to introduce a moratorium on capital punishment with a view to its eventual abolition. On 26 February 2019, the Human Rights Council held its biennial high-level panel on the death penalty and focused on the rights to non-discrimination and equality.242 The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights made a keynote speech in which she highlighted that her office’s visits to death rows around the 237  “Joint Declaration by the European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe”, 10 October 2018, <https://rm.coe.int/joint-declaration-by-the-european-union-high-representative-for-foreig/16808e49c6>. 238  “World Day Against the Death Penalty”, UN human rights experts, 10 October 2018, <https://www.ohchr. org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23705&LangID=E>. 239  Ibid. 240  Ibid.; See this report for interest: The Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, “Judged for More Than Her Crime A Global Overview of Women Facing the Death Penalty”, September 2018, <http://www.deathpenaltyworldwide.org/pdf/judged-for-more-than-her-crime.pdf>. 241  “Greater commitment is needed for the universal abolition of capital punishment”, Parliamentary Assembly, 10 October 2018, <http://www.assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/News/News-View-EN.asp?newsid=7233&lang=2&cat=5>. 242  “Human Rights Council holds high-level panel on the death penalty, in particular with respect to the rights to non-discrimination and equality”, op. cit., note 69. 46