4. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN THE OSCE REGION During the period covered by this paper, the trend towards abolition of the death penalty within the OSCE area remained unbroken. While at the end of 1997 the legal codes of 22 participating States still provided for capital punishment, by the end of the period under review this number had dropped to 14. As of 30 June 2001, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina (Republika Srpska), Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkey, the United States of America and Uzbekistan had not completely abolished the death penalty. In addition, capital punishment also remained in force in a number of separatist, internationally unrecognized entities, namely Abkhazia and South-Ossetia (both within Georgia), Nagorno-Karabakh (within Azerbaijan) and Transdniestria (within Moldova). Nine participating States removed the death penalty entirely from their statute books during the period under review: Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Estonia, Lithuania, Malta, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. Thus, the total number of completely abolitionist participating States had reached 41 by June 2001. Four participating States either abolished capital punishment de facto without having amended their legislation yet or retain the death penalty only for wartime crimes. Albania is de facto abolitionist for peacetime offences since the Constitutional Court ruled in December 1999 that capital punishment is inconsistent with the Constitution in times of peace. Azerbaijan (in 1998) and Latvia (with the ratification of Protocol No. 6 to the ECHR in April 1999) abolished capital punishment for peacetime offences only. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, capital punishment is retained only for wartime crimes since the Republika Srpska introduced a new criminal code in 2000. Four participating States fully retain capital punishment for peacetime and wartime crimes but have introduced official or unofficial moratoria: Armenia (1991), Kyrgyzstan (1998), the Russian Federation (1996), and Turkey (1984). Executions are confirmed to have taken place in at least four participating States during the period under review: Belarus, Kyrgyzstan17, the Russian Federation (in Chechnya, at the time under de facto control of a separatist regime) and the United States of America. Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan18 and Uzbekistan are believed to have carried out the death penalty, although no officially confirmed information was available. 4.1. Albania On 10 December 1999, the Constitutional Court of Albania decided that the death penalty was incompatible with the new 1998 Constitution in times of peace and thus de facto abolished capital punishment for all peacetime offences. All death sentences 9