A/HRC/10/44 page 8 prevented from reintroducing it. Article 4 of the American Convention on Human Rights1 builds on the Covenant but develops it further. It explicitly requires abolitionist States not to reestablish the death penalty; prohibits capital punishment for political offences or related common crimes; and prohibits its imposition on persons who, at the time the crime was committed, were over 70 years of age. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, in its article 37 (a), requires States parties to ensure that capital punishment is not imposed for offences committed by persons younger than 18 years of age. 31. The trend towards the abolition of capital punishment has also led to various protocols to the above-mentioned treaties, which in effect amount to respective amendments of the right to life for the States parties to such protocols. The sixth and thirteenth Additional Protocols to the European Convention on Human Rights, adopted in 1983 and 2002, respectively, call for the general prohibition of capital punishment, in times of both peace and war. Both the Council of Europe and the European Union made it a requirement for States wishing to join their respective organizations that they abolish capital punishment. For these reasons, Europe (with the exception of Belarus) today is a death penalty-free zone. Similarly, the Organization of American States, by means of the adoption of the Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty of 1990, clearly aim at its abolition, and Latin American States, with the exception of Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, are abolitionist. In the same year, the United Nations adopted the Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty. Although only a limited number of States in effect became parties to these two protocols, they encouraged many States in all regions of the world to abolish capital punishment progressively, either de jure or at least de facto. When the United Nations was founded in 1945, only a small minority of seven States in the world had abolished the death penalty in law or practice.2 At November 2008, this number had increased to a total of 141 States from all regions of the world.3 32. The trend towards abolition of capital punishment is also reflected by the fact that, even for the most horrible crimes, such as war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, international criminal law does not allow for the death penalty. Whereas the main war criminals of World War II had been sentenced to death by the military tribunals of Nuremberg and Tokyo, the Statutes of the International Criminal Court and of the ad hoc criminal tribunals established by the Security Council deliberately excluded capital punishment. Also, the Commission on Human Rights encouraged this trend in various resolutions. Before it was replaced by the Human Rights Council, the Commission in its last resolution 2005/59, called upon States that still maintained the death penalty to abolish it completely and, in the meantime, to establish a moratorium on executions. To date, the Council has not taken up this issue. In December 2007, 1 See the decision of the Human Rights Committee of 5 August 2003 in Judge v. Canada, communication No. 829/1998, paras. 10.2-10.6. 2 See Amnesty International at www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty/countries-abolitionist-for-allcrimes. 3 See A/63/293, para. 12, and www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty/abolitionist-and-retentionistcountries.