The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area 13 principles of international law and ensures that its legislation complies with them. For example, Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states: “Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.” And further: “In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law in force at the time of the commission of the crime...” (Points 1 and 2). The Covenant establishes that the death penalty is an exceptional punishment and that its application is justified only for the most serious crimes and against limited categories of people. These principles regarding the use of capital punishment have been fully implemented in Belarus’s national legislation. Belarus also takes into account that the Covenant considers states’ aspirations to abolish the death penalty as a positive trend and supports the development of their legislation in this direction. As mentioned above, this can be seen in the development of criminal legislation and practice, as well as in prominent attempts to contribute to discussion of the problem at the level of high-ranking state officials. With regard to prospects for resolution of the issue, we should note first of all that, although Belarus is not a party to European agreements, it cannot ignore the trends and processes related to abolition of the death penalty in both the European and international communities or remain in the margins of these processes. In its aforementioned judgement, the Constitutional Court paid particular attention to important documents of the Council of Europe, including the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 1950 and Protocols to the Convention (Protocol No. 6 of 28 April 1983 and Protocol No. 13 of 3 May 2002), which decided once and for all the “fate” of the death penalty in Europe. The Court also paid attention to the actual processes in European states that resulted in the complete rejection of the application of the death penalty. At present, the vast majority of member states of the Council of Europe have abolished the death penalty. The trend towards abolition of this form of punishment or towards limiting its application is also characteristic of the international community as a whole: there are more than one hundred states and territories that do not apply capital punishment. Seeing this as a positive trend, the Constitutional Court of Belarus studied legal ways to resolve the issue of the death penalty in Belarus. Specifically, it analysed the constitutionality of the issue and expressed a position on whether the country’s Constitution allowed a decision to be taken either on abolishing the death penalty or on declaring a moratorium without having to change Article 24 of the Constitution. To