3. OTHER INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS AND INSTRUMENTS 3.1 The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Under Article 6 of the ICCPR (“right to life”), States Parties4 are not obliged to abolish the death penalty but to restrict its use to the “most serious crimes”. In a general comment on Article 6, the UN Human Rights Committee stated that “the expression ‘most serious crimes’ must be read restrictively to mean that the death penalty should be a quite exceptional measure”5. The “ECOSOC Safeguards” further specify that the scope of these crimes “should not go beyond intentional crimes with lethal or other extremely grave consequences”6. In its April 1999 resolution on the question of the death penalty, the UN Commission on Human Rights added to this interpretation that the death penalty should not be imposed “for non-violent financial crimes or for non-violent religious practice or expression of conscience”7. The UN Special Rapporteur on extra judicial, summary or arbitrary executions called, in her report submitted to the 1999 session of the Commission on Human Rights, for the exclusion of the possibility of imposing the death penalty for “economic and other socalled victimless offences, espionage and ‘disloyalty’”. Capital punishment should also be excluded for “actions primarily related to prevailing moral values, such as adultery and prostitution, as well as matters of sexual orientation”8. Article 6 explicitly prohibits the imposition of the death penalty for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age, as well as the execution of pregnant women. The “ECOSOC Safeguards” extend these restrictions to new mothers and persons who have become insane9. In Resolution 1999/61 the UN Commission on Human Rights added that no one should be executed “as long as any related legal procedure, at international or at national level, is pending”10. Article 6 also prescribes that the procedural guarantees contained in the ICCPR must be complied with before the death penalty can be carried out. These guarantees include the right to a fair hearing by an independent tribunal, the presumption of innocence, the minimum guarantees for defence, and the right to review by a higher tribunal. In addition to this, States Parties must grant every person sentenced to death the right to seek pardon or commutation of the death sentence. Article 6(6) states that “nothing in this article shall be invoked to delay or to prevent the abolition of capital punishment by any State Party to the present Covenant”. The UN Human Rights Committee concluded in its general comment on Article 6 that “all measures of abolition should be considered as progress in the enjoyment of the right to life”11. In resolution 1998/8 on the death penalty, the UN Commission on Human Rights stated that “abolition of the death penalty contributes to the enhancement of human dignity and to the progressive development of human rights” and called upon all States still maintaining capital punishment “to establish a moratorium on executions, with a view to completely abolishing the death penalty”12. The Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, adopted by the UN General Assembly on 15 December 1989, goes far beyond Article 6, providing for the total abolition of the death penalty13. It obliges all States Parties not to carry out executions, to abolish the death penalty from their laws in times of peace and war, and not to reintroduce 7