The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area out, in connection with ongoing litigation over the state’s lethal injections secrecy act.79 As stated in the United Nations Secretary’s report from 8 August 2014, the act makes the identities of companies and individuals who manufacture and supply lethal injection drugs, and the identities of the doctors hired by the state to oversee executions, “state secrets” shielded from disclosure to the public, the media and even the judiciary.80 In 2014, an execution in the State of Arizona took nearly two hours because it required 15 doses of a new drug combination, where the initial dose was supposed to be a lethal one. It was reported that the botched execution was carried out using the same combination of drugs as those used in the execution of an Ohio prisoner earlier in 2014. Reports indicate pain and suffering during the execution.81 As of today, due to a current shortage or unavailability of the combination of drugs previously used in lethal injection protocols, and amid the various restrictions imposed by foreign governments, the European Union and private pharmaceutical companies seeking to avoid association with executions, a number of retentionist states in the United States (e.g., Arkansas, California, Florida, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina and Ohio) amended their execution procedures to include a one-drug protocol and/or to allow new chemicals to be used which are not certified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for this purpose.82 Reportedly, two approaches have emerged in the search for new executions methods by lethal injection in the United States: (a) some states have adopted new, experimental executions protocols using untested manufactured drugs; (b) some other states have turned to compounded drugs. Under both approaches, the use of those untested means of execution has demonstrably increased the risks of such executions amounting to cruel and unusual punishment.83 This situation has so far led to a series of delayed executions in some states, including Arizona, Oklahoma and Ohio,84 but also instances in which “the states covertly bought supplies from loosely regulated compounding pharmacies, experimented with new drugs and a series of botched executions.”85 After another execution of a death row prisoner in Oklahoma, in May 2014, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) expressed 79  Georgia law, House Bill 122, passed in March 2013, <http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/20132014/136252. pdf>. 80  Report on the Moratorium op. cit., 7, para. 42. 81  NGO submission to the United States of America UPR (2nd cycle), REDRESS 12 June 2015, <http://www. ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/UPR/Pages/UPRUSStakeholdersInfoS22.aspx>. 82  See Erik Eckholm, “Pfizer Blocks the Use of its Drugs in Executions”, New York Times, 13 May 2016, <http:// www.nytimes.com/2016/05/14/us/pfizer-execution-drugs-lethal-injection.html?_r=0>; See also a state by state lethal injection overview, Death Penalty Information Centre, website, <http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/ state-lethal-injection>. 83  Report on the Moratorium, op. cit., note 7, para. 41. 84  Manny Fernandez, “Delays as Death-Penalty States Scramble for Execution Drugs”, The New York Times, 8 October 2015, <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/09/us/death-penalty-lethal-injection.html?_r=0>. 85  Associated Press “Oklahoma officials backed use of wrong drug in botched execution – grand jury”, The Guardian, 20 May 2016, <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/19/oklahoma-botched-execution-drug-mary-fallin>. 23