10 The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area war or of imminent threat of war. This Protocol confirms the irreversible path of the democratic process towards the rejection by all European states of the death penalty as a form of punishment at all times and in all circumstances. Thus, juxtaposed against the numerous discussions, disputes, judgements, and assessments regarding the question of capital punishment is the actual practice of states, which expresses their firm opposition to this form of punishment. Article 1 of Protocol No. 6 to the Convention contains the imperative that: “The death penalty shall be abolished. No one shall be condemned to such penalty or executed.” Some of the countries of the former Soviet Union – Azerbaijan, Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine – have also followed the European path in determining their own opposition to the death penalty. The experience of these countries in resolving the question of the death penalty is very significant for Belarus, which developed in much the same fashion as these states. At the same time, many countries have still not assimilated the example of the European states. It is enough to note that the death penalty is still applied in the majority of states in the United States, as well as in many Asian and African countries. For example, China’s Criminal Code not only retains the death penalty but also envisions its application for an extraordinarily wide range – more than 70 – of crimes. Moreover, many crimes that carry a possible death penalty are not related to depriving someone of life or committing other violent acts against a person (e.g., smuggling, robbery, theft of state or private property, etc.). In the Belarusian case, all of the successive measures that have been taken by the state indicate that it is following the European path, although at present it is the only European country to retain the death penalty in its legislation and to apply it – albeit in very rare cases – in practice. In addition, Belarus has taken a number of steps towards signalling its own opposition to the death penalty. First, we should survey the development of legislation in this area. Whereas under the Criminal Code of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic of 1928, the death penalty could be applied for 60 types of crimes, the 1960 Criminal Code greatly decreased this number, although it remained sufficiently high at more than 30, including war crimes and crimes that did not involve the intentional deprivation of human life. An important point is that both Codes emphasized that the death penalty was only a temporary measure. In addition, even then practice was moving towards application of the death penalty only for premeditated murder with aggravating circumstances.