ANNUAL REPORT 2004 Human Rights ings, Meetings, Rallies and Demonstrations. The Office lication entitled The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area, also compiled and translated background materials in which is released at the Human Dimension Implemen- English and Russian for future use. tation Meeting. It is intended to provide a comparative overview of the use of the death penalty throughout In October 2004, the OSCE dedicated a special day to the OSCE region based upon information provided by the discussion of the freedoms of assembly and associ- the participating States themselves. ation at the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting. In preparation, the ODIHR sent questionnaires to Despite this effort, some of the participating States the participating States and OSCE field operations to that retain the death penalty remain reluctant to make gather information on the legal framework regulating statistics on death sentences and executions freely the activities of NGOs and the organization of peaceful available. A number of OSCE participating States continue to treat information on the death penalty as a assemblies in each state. The questionnaires focused on state secret, a practice that contradicts their OSCE com- permissible restrictions that states choose to apply and mitments. their compliance with international standards. Country reports were prepared on the basis of the responses re- OSCE commitments and international human-rights ceived and are available at www.legislationline.org, law place a number of safeguards on the use of the the ODIHR’s online legislative database. death penalty, which is only legitimate if these obligations are met. In particular, participating States must Death penalty ensure that trials leading to the imposition of the The use of capital punishment in the OSCE region is death penalty comply with both national and interna- steadily decreasing. In 1999, 15 participating States had tional fair-trial standards. Throughout 2004, the ODIHR some form of death penalty, while as many as seven co-operated with OSCE field missions to monitor com- were thought to have carried out executions in the pliance with international safeguards, a task that has previous year. According to data collected between proven to be particularly difficult in those states that June 2003 and June 2004, 10 participating States still continue to treat the death penalty as a state secret. retain the death penalty. Only three – Belarus, the United States and Uzbekistan – still carry out execu- OSCE participating States have committed themselves tions. to keep the question of capital punishment open and to exchange information on the abolition of the death In its work on monitoring the use of the death penalty, penalty. In order for public debate on abolition to be the ODIHR aims to increase transparency as well as meaningful, members of the general public must have compliance with international safeguards, while also access to information on the legal, political, and moral facilitating exchange of information about the aboli- arguments both for and against the death penalty. tion of the death penalty. Transparency means that information on the identity of individuals sentenced to In 2004, the ODIHR began implementing a two-year death or executed should be made public. In addition, programme in co-operation with the European Com- statistics and information on the incidence of death mission and OSCE field missions. Concentrating on the sentences and executions should periodically be made countries of Central Asia, the programme facilitates available to the public. the exchange of information on the death penalty and its alternatives, and it also encourages compliance with As a forum for participating States to make such infor- international standards in those countries that retain mation available, the ODIHR produces an annual pub- the death penalty. 55