The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area duty to ensure that the method of execution does not constitute cruel, infamous or unusual punishment, as provided in Article XXVI of the American Declaration.92 In this regard, the drugs and doses to be used in case of executions by lethal injection, as well as the composition of the execution team and the training of its members should be subjected to the highest quality control standards. In particular, the drugs used should be subject to government approval and regulation, the execution team should have appropriate medical training, and lethal injection protocols should be available to the public to guarantee public scrutiny. The Commission further criticised the failure to provide relevant information regarding the method of execution noting that “the State has the duty to inform the person sentenced to death, in a timely manner, about the drug and method of execution that will be used, so he or she is not precluded from litigating the right to be executed in a manner devoid of cruel and unusual suffering.”93 In these cases the Commission found violations of the prohibition of cruel, infamous or unusual punishment, by exposing the petitioners to unjustified anguish and fear.94 On 29 June 2015, in Glossip v Gross, the U.S. Supreme Court, when faced with the question of whether the lethal injection protocol constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution,95 decided five to four to uphold the death penalty, since, in its view, the applicants had failed to establish a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim. The Court held that the use of Midazolam, the sedative used in Oklahoma’s lethal injection protocol, does not violate the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment under the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court’s decision has triggered reactions from various stakeholders, including from organizations within the OSCE region.96 The decision led Justice Sonia Sotomayor to file a dissenting opinion, in which Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan joined. Sotomayor stated that “Oklahoma’s current protocol is a barbarous method of punishment—the chemical equivalent of being burned alive. But under the Court’s new rule, it would not matter whether the State intended to use midazolam, or instead to have petitioners drawn and quartered, slowly tortured to death, or actually burned at the stake: because petitioners failed to prove the availability of sodium thiopental or pentobarbital, the State could execute them using whatever means it designated.”97 92  IACHR, Report No. 11/15, Case 12.833, Merits (Publication), Felix Rocha Diaz, United States, March 23, 2015, paras. 84, <https://www.oas.org/en/iachr/decisions/2015/USPU12833EN.pdf>. 93  Ibid., para. 85 94  Ibid. , para. 87; NGO submission to the United States of America UPR (2nd cycle), REDRESS 12 June 2015 at <http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/UPR/Pages/UPRUSStakeholdersInfoS22.aspx>. 95  U.S. Supreme Court, case of Glossip v. Gross, 29 June 2015, No. 14–7955, 576 U. S. (2015), <https://www. supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-7955_aplc.pdf>. 96  Statement of the General Rapporteur on the abolition of the death penalty for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), 1 July 2015, <http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/News/News-View-en.asp?newsid=5707&lang=2>. 97  U.S. Supreme Court, Glossip v. Gross, dissenting opinion, 29 June 2015, 576 U. S. (2015), <https://www. supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-7955_aplc.pdf>. 25