The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area 8. Also requests the Office of the High Commissioner to prepare a summary report on the panel discussion and to submit it to the Human Rights Council at its thirty sixth session; United Nations Special Procedures, Interim Report by the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment A/67/279 (2012) […] VI. Conclusions and recommendations 73. The evolving practice of States shows a clear trend towards abolition of the death penalty. Even in retentionist countries, practices and opinions have changed. Significantly, the trend to abolish and the trend to restrict are both informed by a stated conviction that capital punishment is cruel, inhumane and degrading, either per se or as applied. 74. To date, the death penalty has been treated under the provisions concerning the right to life, and therein as an exception provided for by international law. A new approach is needed as there is evidence of an evolving standard within international bodies and a robust State practice to frame the debate about the legality of the death penalty within the context of the fundamental concepts of human dignity and the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. This evolving standard, along with the resulting illegality of the death penalty under such prohibition, is developing into a norm of customary law, if it has not already done so. 75. The Special Rapporteur finds that even if the emergence of a customary norm that considers the death penalty as per se running afoul of the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is still under way, most conditions under which capital punishment is actually applied renders the punishment tantamount to torture. Under many other, less severe conditions, it still amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. 76. The prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and the strict adherence to safeguards constitute absolute limits on the use and enforcement of the death penalty. It may still be theoretically possible to impose and execute the death penalty without running afoul of the absolute prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, but the rigorous conditions that States must apply for that purpose make the retention of capital punishment not worth the effort. Even 82