1 UN TREATY BODIES Despite this position, the Committee specifically asked to be informed of cases where Austria had refused extradition, return or expulsion owing to the risk that the person might be subjected to torture, ill-treatment or the death penalty upon return.156 This explicit extension is unusual, although it does reflect European regional law.157 When Guatemala extended the death penalty to new types of crime even though it had agreed not to do so under regional and international instruments, the Committee found that the failure to revoke death penalties imposed for such crimes constituted cruel and inhuman treatment or punishment, and violated Article 16.158 Thus, while the Committee has never explicitly extended the prohibition on torture and ill-treatment to the execution of the death penalty, it seems that it is prepared to find that the death penalty is in violation of the UNCAT where a State party acts in breach of its legal obligations under other instruments. Specific circumstances surrounding the death penalty may render its imposition a violation even in the absence of regional law. For example, the CAT found that creating a situation of uncertainty for death row prisoners by delaying adoption of an instrument abolishing the death penalty amounted to cruel and inhuman treatment in breach of Article 16.159 Like the HRC, the CAT has also found that the method of execution may itself amount to torture or ill-treatment, for example holding that death by stoning would violate the UNCAT.160 The CAT may apply stricter limits than the HRC in this regard, as it has indicated that the use of lethal injections should be reviewed due to its potential to cause severe pain and suffering.161 If lethal injection, which was often viewed as the most ‘humane’ method of execution, is considered by the CAT as a whole to constitute ill-treatment, or perhaps even torture, then it is CAT, Concluding Observations on Austria, UN Doc. CAT/C/AUT/CO/3, 2005, §8. Neither Council of Europe nor European Union laws on extradition specifically prohibit extradition of an individual regarding a crime for which the death penalty may be applied. However, the European Court of Human Rights has held that death row phenomenon could constitute inhuman and degrading treatment, and therefore that extradition where there is a real risk of the death penalty being imposed violates the European Convention on Human Rights. See Soering v UK, no. 14038/88, ECHR (Series A) No. 161, judgement of 7 July 1989, discussed in Chapter 2. 158 CAT, Concluding Observations on Guatemala, UN Doc. A/61/44, 2006, §32(22). 159 CAT, Concluding Observations on Armenia, UN Doc. A/56/44, 2001, §39(g). At the time the CAT considered the report of Armenia in November 2000, Armenia had neither signed nor ratified Protocol 6 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which prohibits the death penalty in peacetime. 160 A.S. v Sweden, CAT Communication No. 149/1999, 24 November 2000. 161 CAT, Concluding Observations on the USA, UN Doc. A/61/44, 2006, §37(31). This difference may, however, be due to evidence which came to light in the thirteen years between the HRC decision and the comment by the CAT. 156 157 35