The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area–Background Paper 2017 with and visit their imprisoned parents abroad. The UN Committee against Torture in its General Comment No. 3 clarified that victims of torture or other ill-treatment have the right to obtain redress and adequate compensation, including the means for as full a rehabilitation as possible, without discrimination.58 2. Other aspects of the situation of the death penalty in the OSCE area OSCE participating States have made a number of commitments related to the question of capital punishment, including keeping its abolition under consideration and for participating States that have not abolished the death penalty to only impose it for the most serious crimes, in accordance with international commitment.59 At the 2016 OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw, in September, participating States reiterated those commitments. Several participating States called for a moratorium as a first step towards universal abolition, citing that any miscarriage of justice could result in the killing of an innocent person by state authorities and that cruel, inhuman and degrading aspects of the use of the death penalty are not mitigated by a democratic process. Furthermore, it was reported that arguments were raised in favor of the re-introduction of the death penalty in states that previously abolished it or de-facto abolished it,60 and that 2015 saw the greatest use of the death penalty, with Asian countries remaining responsible for 50 per cent of executions, globally. At the international level, on 19 December 2016 the United Nations General Assembly adopted its sixth resolution aimed to establish a global moratorium on the death penalty.61 The resolution was endorsed by an overwhelming majority, with 117 states voting in favor of the text, 40 voting against it, 31 abstaining and five absent.62 In particular, it has to be noted that Belarus, one of the two remaining retentionist countries in the OSCE region, together with the United States, was among those 31 states who abstained, while the United States voted against the resolution. Besides its main goal of establishing a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty, the resolution intended to make other strong calls 58  Committee against Torture, General Comment No.3 on the implementation of article 14 of the UNCAT, U.N. Doc. CAT/C/GC/3 (2012), paras. 1, 3 and 15. 59  Vienna 1989; Copenhagen 1990; Helsinki 2008. 60  Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, “OSCE/ODIHR Director Link expresses grave concern over Turkish President’s statement on reintroducing the death penalty”, 2 November 2016, <http://www.osce. org/odihr/278597>. 61  United Nations General Assembly Resolution on the Moratorium on the use of the death penalty, U.N. Doc. A/RES/71/187 (2016), <http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/71/187&referer=http:// www.un.org/en/ga/71/resolutions.shtml&Lang=E>. 62  “Overwhelming Majority of States support a Universal Moratorium on the Death Penalty”, Fédération internationale des ligues des droits de l’homme (FIDH), 20 December 2016, <https://www.fidh.org/en/issues/ death-penalty/overwhelming-majority-of-States-support-a-universal-moratorium-on-the>. 23